These Dreams
by Bardicsidhe
Summary: Honda-centric fiction. Post-Battle City Tournament, the Yamis are gone, and the boys are having a ‘boys’ night out’ at Yugi’s grandfather’s place. The sleepover gets a little hairy, however, when nightmares turn into something else entirely.
1. Prelude

**These Dreams…  
Rating: T  
Pairings: **We'll figure them out as we go along, hm?  
**Summary: **Honda-centric fiction. Nobody writes that…and it demands to be written! This is post-Battle City Tournament, the Yamis are gone, and the boys are having a 'boys' night out' at Yuugi's grandfather's place. The sleepover gets a little hairy, however, when nightmares turn into something else entirely.  
**Disclaimer:** The boys of Yu-Gi-Oh! Are not mine, and once I'm finished with them, I'll be returning them to their proper slots pronto.

* * *

"_Bring him up!"_

"_Get moving, boy."_

_He heard the callous voice, echoing in the rising yellow dust amid a sea of uncaring, upturned faces. He couldn't move. Why couldn't he move?_

"_Born to a pack of the heathen nomads…captured after a fierce battle, this is the only known survivor…"_

_He missed the rest of the introduction in a wave of sorrow too overwhelming to give proper name, brought to the fore by that word…nomads…_

_His…family?_

_His hands were weighted to his sides by warm, restricting bands of iron. Trapped! How could he get free? Blind panic replaced the sadness. He struggled, only to fall. Beyond him were distant, hollowly reverberating screams of laughter. A huge, greedy, hammish hand wrapped around his ankle…_

"No!"

At the sound of violent denial, everyone sat bolt upright. Around them, the darkness of the living room lay in a malevolent crouch. Somehow, late night movie marathons tended to bring out the worst in the shadows to the imagination.

Especially after what they'd been through.

Maybe that was why the girls hadn't laughed when they'd planned a sleepover.

"Who…who said that? Is everyone all right?" Yuugi called out, and received various shaken confirmations. He reached out from his nest on the couch and flicked on the lamp, flooding the room with light.

They were all right. It was quiet. As if the voice had never spoken. Yuugi pressed his palm to his forehead, trying to remember. The tone…the sound…it was so familiar…but he hadn't gotten more than the raw fear, before starting awake. And whatever connection he may have made was gone.

"Maybe somebody had a nightmare," Jounouchi snickered, kicking the flap of his sleeping bag aside, knuckle in his mouth to stifle a yawn. "That's the last time we watch _Return of the Mummy _before we go to bed, Yuugi. I don't think our friends can—"

"_Can_ it," Honda snapped unexpectedly. Everyone turned. He held up his hands, fingers spread in a submissive gesture. "Whoever it was, don't embarrass them, Jou."

"Why not?" Otogi challenged, padding to the television set in his bare feet after a bag of leftover corn chips. "If they're too afraid to speak up and admit it, then they deserve to be picked on."

"Because it's cruel, Otogi," Ryou spoke out, quietly, and held up his hand beseechingly as the dark-haired boy passed with the bag of snacks, "some of us don't want to talk about our bad memories."

Silence fell over the group for a long moment, as one by one, they considered the ice-blond with sober faces. Of all, he had probably suffered the most. There were things he didn't want to talk about. _Wouldn't _talk about, no matter how sweetly he was coaxed. And even a month after the Battle City Tournament was over, and the world safe again, he wasn't in school.

They understood. He'd been hurt in ways that went beyond skin-deep.

Yuugi fingered the Millenium Puzzle pendant that Yami had left him. He didn't want to know what it felt like to have the other half of his soul ripped from his body. At least Yami had spared him _that _agony. Their parting had been…easier.

Otogi knelt down beside the pale teen and offered the chips, by way of apology. "Hey, if it was you, it's okay, Bakura," he murmured.

"_Don't _call me that," Ryou sighed, "please." He dug into the corn chips and snatched a fistful. "And it wasn't me. Really."

"Then who was it?" This from Honda. The others looked at each other in question, but no eyes betrayed their owners, and eventually, it didn't seem all that important. Whoever had cried out, and what it was that _made _them cry was obviously personal business. At last, Yuugi called a halt, doused the lamp, and insisted that everyone at least _try _and get some sleep. The muffled sound of crunching and the plastic rustle of the chip bag betrayed Ryou and Otogi as they made the most of their snacks, heedless of any possible resulting tooth decay.

Yuugi and Jounouchi exchanged looks in the dark, and huddled into their sleeping bags once more.

And inches away from where Otogi licked up the last salty crumbs, Honda lay and shivered.

* * *

_12.13.04 - format cleanup. ugh.  
05.19.04 – total overhaul, grammar, proofread, plot holes._


	2. Keys

_Chapter Two_

_

* * *

_

_What the hell _was _that?_

It didn't make any sense. Nothing like that had ever happened to him! But even now, in the middle of the night, the heat and grit of the stone block he'd knelt on still faintly burned his palms, and he could feel the press of that eager, sweaty hand closed about his ankle.

_They were all strangers. I saw them so clearly, but I didn't _know _any of them._

Before, he'd had nightmares where people he knew were mean to him. People he cared about. That, he'd come to expect. People he cared about had hurt him all his life. Even Jounouchi had, without knowing it.

_Jou would never understand if I told him why. He'd say I was just being…well…cruel. Teasing. Trying to bait him._

_He doesn't know. How could he?_

_As long as I can keep it to myself, he'll never know._

_It's better that way. He's happy now. Happier than he was a few months ago. And he's not kicking my ass every time I look sideways at his sister, at least._

But the matter of the nightmare transcended his own personal dilemmas. It wasn't pleasant, whatever it was. And he had _no _personal experience, movie, television, or otherwise, that could match up with that strange, exotic world.

It looked like a scene from _Trigun_. Sand and wind and heat…but there were no tall buildings, no glass windows. Just yellow stone saltbox cubes that looked like they'd cook their residents inside like an oven. Ancient. Even the _wind _felt old.

_It has to be from a movie. I imagined it. That's all it was._

But surely he'd never watched a movie that portrayed child slavery, had he? And among other things, _that _was an aspect of the dream of which there was no doubt. The irons, the hoarse voice of the hawker, the eager buyers watching him on his platform…Honda stifled another shiver that came from deep within. _Television never bugged me so bad, before. And I didn't use to have an imagination, past imagining seeing pretty girls naked…or, well…heh…_

Otogi shifted beside him in the dark, and Honda froze. The soft crackling of the corn chips had long since stopped, and now, gentle snores issued from the other boy's sleeping bag. They were reassuring, as well as the kittenish sighs of Ryou, and Jounouchi's irrepressible mutterings about food. Yuugi was silent, but since Yami had left him, he was quiet much of the time, anyway.

_I wish we knew where Yami was, _Honda sighed, and turned over to tactfully avoid Otogi's chili-pepper breath spilling into his face. _He could probably tell me what this is. He wasn't such a bad guy, really…_

His last thoughts were of the pharaoh's spirit, before sleep captured him once again.

"_What am I bid for this one? Young, strong, and strapping as an ox, for only sixteen!"_

_The audience clamored, and one of his 'attendants' hauled him rudely to his feet to turn him, yanking him away from the bastard who'd clamped onto his foot. _

"_Keep yer distance," The hulking brute of a man had said, as he clutched under Honda's arms and kicked at the assailant to force him back. It was the first time anyone had ever protected him here, and despite the fact that he knew he was only valuable merchandise to these men, it was still a touchstone in the madness to cling to._

_Then the rest of the minutes passed by in a swirl of voices, until a hoarse shout of "Sold!" signalled the end of the tirade. A man in a pristine linen kilt and a glittering gold armband came to snap a new lead to his shackles and take him away._

"Where…?" Honda mumbled to himself in the reality of sleep, although he knew his captor wouldn't answer. Otogi stirred again, awakened by the sound of his friend's voice, and propped himself on one forearm, eyeing the other's slumbering form with misgiving.

_Time passed. How could he dream of time passing? But he knew, by the hardening of his body, and the growth of ache of his feet and hands. In the service of the king, they said, the son of Ra. A proud station for an animal born of the desert. He felt the brown length of rope between his hands, and the sandy wind whipping his hair against his cheeks, and wasn't so sure._

"…No…"

Honda's hands twitched as he moaned distantly, and Otogi watched him, uncomprehending. What was wrong with his friend? God knew they were _all _allowed to have bad dreams, but…

"Honda?" He reached out, tentatively, and shook the other boy's shoulder. Honda bolted awake.

"I don't…want…eh? Oh, man…" One massive hand clamped over his eyes, and he groaned. "Not again." Hard labor. He'd dreamed of _hard labor_. Now he knew for certain that it wasn't a movie. No movie he'd ever seen had a premise like _that_!

"You all right, man? You were talking in your sleep…"

"What time is it?" Honda demanded. Otogi squinted at the clock on Yuugi's microwave. "Like…two in the morning…dude, was it you? Were you the one who yelled 'no' earlier?"

"Don't worry about it."

The boys stared at each other levelly.

_Like hell I won't, _said the green eyes.

_Leave me alone, _Honda's gaze retorted, silently.

Otogi's eyebrows rose.

Honda coughed. "Well, if it's all the same to you, I'm going back to sleep." He turned away from the other youth, scrooged down in his sleeping bag, and drew the cover up almost to his chin. Otogi eyed his 'cold shoulder' in disbelief. But there was no sense in arguing with someone's back.

"If you say so," he sighed, and pounded his pillow a little in frustration before dropping into it, facefirst.


	3. Persona Non Grata

_Chapter Three_

_

* * *

_

_The stranger's eyes had a wrenchingly familiar shape to them. But…they were the wrong color. Dark. Almost black, like the rest of his countrymen. Promising and threatening all at once. _

Alluring.

_The strange man had come out of the architect's tents with a woman on his arm, making the rounds of the building project without concern. _

_He was positively bristling with metal plates in gold and bronze, and very little else. A sword hung at his belt, and another was strapped to his back. _

_Royalty. Or a member of the Royal Guard. Pheh._

_Honda turned away before the lash of the whip recaptured his wandering attention._

_But the memory of those…wait…no…black eyes…they blurred his vision. Then the whip_ did _come singing down across his shoulders._

Honda yelped, shoulders flexing and skin twitching against some unseen agony. Otogi woke with a start, and this time, loathe to intercede, he simply pillowed his head on his arms and watched in horrified fascination.

_But Honda was young and strong, and he took the blow with only a wince, heaving back into line at a curse from his driver. Another block. Another piece of statuary to adorn a pharoah's tomb._

"The bastard…" Honda's lip curled in the half-light. Otogi stared. The grimace on his friend's face was…startling. Defiant, even for someone like Honda, who never passed up a good wallow in righteous anger. Around them, the others slept on, soundly. All but Jounouchi, who lay wide-eyed on the couch, watching the interplay between his best friend and his would-have-been enemy.

_Finally, he realized just what it was. He was dreaming again. This was a lucid dream. But the television gurus always said that meant he could move around on his own, once he knew he was dreaming. _

_Funny, it wasn't like that, now. He was stuck. He was a passenger in the most vivid dream of his life. His head turned against his will as the high-ranking individual passed; heart thudded in fear, breath quickened. The man whose eyes were the wrong color caught him watching. Dismissed his companion and strode in Honda's direction. Raised his hand for the driver to stay his whip, and ordered the line of slaves to stop._

_The stranger had looked so much older, far away. Now, he seemed no more than seventeen. A youth. And his eyes were so…familiar…_

_The glittering youth pointed. At _him.

"_Where is this one from?"_

Honda gasped with recognition at the voice. His eyelids fluttered, head lolled to one side. He muttered something rapidly. A name. A half-heard name.

His friend blinked. Shook his head, and peeked hesitantly over his shoulder at the others. Were they awake? Had they heard? It sounded like he was crying out for Yuugi…or even Jou, to be honest.

_What's going on inside you, my friend?_

Otogi leaned out, and braced a reassuring hand against Honda's shoulder. The larger, darker boy twitched violently, and slowly relaxed, breathing evenly again.

Jounouchi was at Honda's side in heartbeats. "It was him, wasn't it?" He asked, locking a penetrating brown gaze on Otogi's bright green.

"Yes." Otogi nodded, shortly. There was no doubt, now.

"Is he all right?"

"I hope so."

_His dreaming self and his waking self seemed of one mind, both to stare in slack-jawed amazement at the stranger…no…the supreme bodyguard of the_ pharoah. _Guardian of The Son of Ra. The rest of his fellows in the line dropped to their knees in subservience. He stood, staring, until driven to his hands and knees with the butt of a whip to the scalp. The rest of the conversation was sporadic and fuzzy to his ears as his head swam. It faded in and out. Honda watched the sand, dully, fingers flexing in the scorching yellow-brown earth._

"…_last…tribe……killed, sir."_

_They were talking about him. His tribe. His family…Honda felt the tears well up against his cheeks once more. So much blood…_

"He's crying!"

Otogi glared.

"You think I don't see that!"

"…_how long ago?" The swordsman asked, as though bored._

"_Six months."_

"_Has he been trained?"_

"_No…but if His…esty…wish…" Had the driver leered? His bleary vision wouldn't let him be sure._

"_Not necessary." The stranger waved a hand dismissively._

_The roaring and ringing of his ears subsided, and he heaved a sigh of relief, mixed with chagrin. What were they talking about? What had been decided? But the Dream-Honda didn't know the voice, and was too frightened to care. When they advanced on him, he glowered, shoulders taut. If they threatened him, he would act…lash out and escape…_

_Then his bonds were slashed, and he was secured in new ones before he could draw more than two breaths. Prodded by a pair of new guardians to follow the prince._

_Honda knew that voice all too well. He didn't want to know what was being planned for him._

Honda groaned, tore himself into wakefulness, and hoisted onto an elbow as the other hand clapped over his eyes. They were damp. Gritty with sleep and salt. "Damn."

His watchers sat back, and took the extra seconds of time to scramble to their beds.

"Honda?"

The familiar voice drew a jerk of shock from him, and his body tensed again in fear and anger, before realizing where he was. Everything was too raw, too fresh in his memory. He was clean. He wasn't remotely tired, or sore. And yet…

"Honda, are you okay?"

He followed the sound, turning his head to where Jounouchi was sitting up, one arm around his knees, watching with concern. "You were talking in your sleep again," the other boy added in a whisper.

"What was I saying?" Honda asked, suspiciously. _Ah, shit._

"I couldn't really tell," Otogi interjected, "it was kind of muddled." He paused. "What were you dreaming about, Honda?"

"Me? Oh. Nothing."

From across the room, Jounouchi handed him a measuring look. He paled. _Don't look at me like that. Please…_

"You said 'Yu—something.'"

"What?" Honda stiffened.

"You know… '_Yu_-something. Like…Yuugi. Were you dreaming about the Tournament again?" Jounouchi said the name of the contest reverently. They all did, with good reason.

"Um. I was…thinking about the pharoah." It wasn't exactly a lie.

The other teen sighed and nodded sympathetically, and inwardly, Honda fought off a wave of self-loathing.

"We all do. I think about him a lot. He left Yuugi a big burden."

As one, they turned back to look at the slumbering blond.

"He promised to come back." Honda said in stalwart defense of the missing Yami. "He wouldn't leave Yuugi or—"

"Just what I was thinking," Otogi reassured him hastily, before he could finish. Honda realized what had nearly slipped out, and shot the other boy a look of gratitude. Or…tried to, rather. He hadn't quite planned to find himself staring; unable to turn away.

On the couch, Jounouchi's eyebrow arched at the exchange. He had no time to react, however; Bakura and Yuugi at last were stirring, and as Jounouchi turned, the connection between Otogi and Honda abruptly dissolved. He blinked, and sighed.

_I must have imagined it._


	4. I Can't Stay

_Chapter Four _

_

* * *

_

Life began again, it seemed. The Tournament was over. Thanks to the grave sacrifices of Yuugi's pharaoh and many of the others, the God Cards were destroyed, and could never again be raised. Yami was gone. Bakura's darker half was gone as well, torn from him forcibly, so they explained later. Malik and Isis returned to the temples they were blooded to guard.

Honda didn't remember most of it. He and the others had been unconscious at the time. They usually were when important things were happening, he thought cynically. He awakened, with Jounouchi on one side, Otogi on the other, and a pounding headache worse than any hangover he'd ever had. _Ever_.

Yuugi explained patiently that Yami no Yuugi had agreed to sacrifice himself to lock the magic of the God Cards away forever. They were an abomination, he said – voice soft and toneless – a control over things that should never have been leashed.

Jounouchi demanded to know how, voice thick and rough. With tears just welling up now, the others agreed. It seemed too sudden – too quick and terrible an ending for the spirit.

Yuugi didn't have an answer.

They heard Bakura's howl then, from deep in the belly of the blimp, and pushed their pain aside at the unexpected parting in order to find him.

Afterward if anyone asked, Yuugi would not answer.

School seemed pale competition to the excitement and danger of Battle City, but at least it was safe. And there was always food, and a bed to sleep in at night. And no evil spirits and crazy-ass monsters boiling to take chunks out of anyone who got in the way.

Shudder.

Best not think too much on that last bit.

Faced with the morning and the self-appointed duty of assembling boxes of cereal on the counter, Honda had to admit that his dreams seemed far less earthshaking. It didn't matter what he'd seen. He'd seen _everyone_ in this house in a dream, one night or another. He'd even seen Anzu and Mai in a few…not that he was going to tell _them _that.

Milk. Where was the milk? Didn't Yuugi's old granddad keep _milk _in this joint? Ah, there it was. Honda dragged it out of the refrigerator from where it had cornered itself, and splashed it over his cornflakes. He passed it to Jounouchi and moved on to the kitchen table with a spoon. Ancient Egypt and reincarnated friends with eyes the wrong color faded out of memory, replaced by sugary frosting and the lethargic boredom that never failed to find him on Saturday mornings.

Jounouchi drowned _his _bowl to the rim, eliciting snickers as mummified marshmallows flew out of the soggy mess and onto the counter. He scooped the refugees back into place and tottered precariously to the table. Honda watched him in disbelief.

That…couldn't have been _him_, could it? The man with the swords had resembled him, a little…but _that _fellow was collected and self-assured, and walked without a wasted movement. Liquid steel. And he was _hot_. No…hot didn't even _begin _to measure his temperature.

The dream-Jounouchi probably ate leather for breakfast, not marshmallow cereal and milk. And either way, he surely never spilled a drop. The blond was even now suctioning milk and candy bits off of the tabletop with his mouth.

It was a hard lesson in reality. But all the same…comforting.

Honda palmed his eyes with a groan. "Didn't anyone ever teach you table manners?"

"He sits up now when he eats…what more do you want?" Ryou quipped in a rare moment of humor, and the kitchen reverberated with laughter.

Jounouchi didn't find it all that funny.

"Well, at least I don't cry in my sleep," he retorted, and immediately dropped his eyes with a flush of shame.

Honda stared at his bowed head in disbelief. Jounouchi had seen the tears. He knew something was wrong, but he'd just…

Hah. Some friend.

And if he let the others in on it, they'd press him to explain. Honda didn't know _what _in the name of God this was, and he sure as hell didn't want to try and _explain_ it to anyone!

Honda's face burned as two curious pairs of eyes – Yuugi's and Ryou's – leveled on him. He shoved his bowl away and stood up with enough speed to nearly knock his chair to the floor.

It was too much. Though he tried to ignore it, the dream was still fresh. _Too _much to hear his own best friend practically order him into slavery and have him betray something so personal now.

"I'm going for a ride."

And out he went, snatching up his helmet to a distant yelp of "Wait!" from the kitchen.

The side door of the game shop slammed behind him.

"Honda, wait!"

He shrugged on his jacket.

"C'mon, stop!"

The voice grew nearer with the sound of thundering feet. Honda ignored it. A glance at the helmet, and he set it gingerly on the garage workbench, and threw a leg over his motorcycle.

"Wait! I'll go with—!"

Otogi threw himself out the side door just in time to be drowned out by the gunning roar of a powerful Yamaha engine turning over. And Honda was gone. The words he'd meant to say died in his throat.

A brilliant spark of red on the workbench caught his eyes. He turned.

Honda's helmet.

Otogi stared. Cursed. And dashed inside for his keys.


	5. Until the Last moment

_Chapter Five_

* * *

Pavement whipped underneath Honda's wheels at a frightening rate of speed. Cars, storefronts, and people along the sidewalk became a riotous blaze of color. The crack of cycling pistons roared in his ears. Wind created in his own passing stung his lips and eyes until they burned. And free of the restraining helmet, it wasn't long before his hair slipped out of its rigid shape.

He wanted to be somewhere else.

_Anywhere _else.

Why did he storm out the house over something so _trivial_? It wasn't like he had any control over what his body did while he was asleep! He knew _Jounouchi_ didn't. So who was he to talk? But that didn't matter, because now they all _knew _that he'd been crying in his sleep, and considering the timing, he could only imagine what kind of connections his friends were going to make.

_And I told Jou and Otogi earlier that I'd been thinking about the pharaoh. _His eyes widened, and squeezed in pain. _He thinks that I…_

_Oh, not that. _Please_ don't be thinking that._

Things were already too complicated as it was.

A traffic light whizzed overhead. Had it been red? He couldn't be sure. _Damn. If I don't focus I'm going to get myself killed. _He knew where he was going – there was a nice little park with a fountain, a few benches, a slide…the works. He could see the ocean from there. He'd just park his bike and sit and be quiet for a while. Those dreams were still touching the edges of his mind…begging entry, and promising to explain themselves if he'd only let them back in.

_Bullshit_, he told them, and shoved them away.

Maybe he _was_ overreacting, but his best friend had no right to say something like that in front of everyone. If Jounouchi and Otogi had stayed silent, he could've gotten away without anyone the wiser. If there was anything he hated more than betrayal, it was pity. Then again, Otogi hadn't _admitted _anything.

They were probably grilling _him _about it, now.

_If only I hadn't let it get to me. I couldn't look at Jou…but I'm making too much out of this. They were just dreams. Just stupid dreams. I can just laugh…just say I forgot something that I needed to get at home…but it's a thirty minute round trip. Like hell they'd believe I'd waste all that gas for a video game._

Flashing brake lights ahead demanded his wandering attention at last, and he slid to a halt at the next intersection. His engine fumed impatiently. "I'm sorry, baby," he apologized to the motorcycle, "I'll take good care of you when we get home, I promise."

A pretty girl at the crosswalk caught his apology, and gave him an odd look. He blushed. "Huh? Oh…it was just…I was just…"

She kept walking, perhaps a little faster now, and the light flashed green. The car ahead of him rolled into the intersection, and Honda tossed the disappearing girl one last agitated glance as he, too, accelerated.

_Oh, what the hell. I'll never see her again, anyway._

But he'd already made himself look like an ass in front of four people that he _would _be seeing again. Preferably sooner, rather than later. Maybe he could just come clean, and tell them all the whole story? "I could act like Dorothy from _The Wizard of Oz_. And you were there, and you…and you…"

But he'd only seen Jou…

A very musclebound, dominating, leather and metal-clad Jou…

"So much for that idea."

But heavily edited, maybe they'd accept his story.

_That's what I'll do. And the longer I wait, the harder it'll be._ He abandoned the road to the park for a tree-lined sidestreet that would take him on a rapid circuit back to the game store.

Honda swerved to avoid an old lady that walked out in front of him, and looked back to see her drop a bag of groceries and shake a fist at him. He sighed, and turned to face forward again…

And suddenly time slowed to a crawl.

A bouncing rubber ball flashed across the road like a pink meteor, followed by the trailing comet of a toddler, and after that, his terrified mother.

Squealing brakes.

Metal grating on metal as the Yamaha protested to such brutality…

The hollow _pop _and grind of lovingly painted fenders skidding across asphalt.

A sickening crunch.

Pain. Hellish pain.

Behind him was the dying roar of another powerful engine screeching to a halt.

"Honda! **NO!**"

The world rang at once with sound, and slid into darkness.

* * *

"Get up!"

The words came simultaneously with the thud of his shoulders into something hot, gritty, and _hard_. He slid with the force of his fall, and tiny granules left racing tracks down the backs of his bare arms and shoulders.

"Get _up_!"

_I can't._

The sun beat against his eyelids, and his skin tingled with the sensation of not-quite sunburns. And bruises. _Lots _of bruises.

"On your feet, or by the will of Ra, I will _make _you rise!" A snort of disgust, and a whispered metallic hiss as steel dug into sand beside his head. Thankfully, the shadow of whoever shouted at him blotted out the sun now, and Honda peeled open gritty eyeballs to gaze upward at his…rescuer?

_Hah. Some rescuer. Wait…I was on my motorcycle…and that kid ran out in front of me…that's all I remember._

_Am I dead?_

"Get up!"

_If I am, then you're one piss-poor St. Peter, buddy. _"I don't think I–" Honda bit off his words with a start. He knew what he was saying, but he had _no _idea what had just come out of his mouth. That didn't sound like Japanese. That didn't even sound like _English_. Come to think of it, Mr. Get-Up-Right-Now wasn't making much sense to his ears, either. But whatever the other man said made perfect sense in Honda's head…

And the voice was eerily familiar. The voice that was giving him a superb chance to study it at the moment.

"I did not take you from the ropes to _think_. One blow to the head does _not _stop a soldier." The man above him raged, "Not a bodyguard of the pharaoh. With these two hands, I raised you above the muck and sweat in which you crawled. And if you disobey, with these two hands – the gods aid me – I will knock you down again!"

_Ropes? Soldier? Pharoah…holy shit. I really _must_ be dead. Or delusional. I doubt people in comas have dreams as interesting as this._

_Dreams. Shit._

The memory came back as he pulled at it, distant now in the face of heat and sand. Ignoring the brief spell of dizzy waves, Honda struggled to his feet, expecting a blaze of pain. But it wasn't so bad, really…not as bad as he'd expected, considering that he'd probably just trashed a two-thousand-dollar bike.

But the bike wasn't here. _Anywhere._ Not to mention the kid, the trees…the _town_…

The other man glared at him, and gestured toward the sword that stood buried point-down in sand only a few precious inches from where Honda's skull had just lain. The blade was wickedly curved and grooved. The metal looked hammered, rough, but still the edge shone sharp.

"Pick it up."

Honda squinted in the pain-bright afternoon light.

"Pick it _up!_"

Suddenly, he knew. The realization struck him with more force than the pavement rushing up to greet him.

It was the Not-Jounouchi. The one he'd dreamed about.

Only his sword was unsheathed this time. And he looked very, very pissed.


	6. One Man's Dream

_Chapter Six _

_

* * *

_

A cold, passionless hospital ward.

White sheets.

Paler skin.

_Oh…Honda…_

The soft blips and blinks of machines at the bedside were Honda's only sign of life. He'd lost most of the skin from his right elbow, shoulder, and cheek, suffered from a broken hip, a shattered ankle and two snapped wrists, and what the doctors blandly referred to as 'severe head trauma.'

"You should've been wearing your helmet, you idiot!" The side of Otogi's clenched fist hammered against the plexiglass separating him from Honda's room. The injured teenager lay unconscious against a bank of pillows, a massive pad of gauze taped to his temple. His wrists were hidden in braces; arms lined with tubes.

His eyes were closed, the rise and fall of his chest frighteningly shallow.

Three weeks had already passed, and while bandages and casts covered the external injuries, there was no sign of improvement or response.

_Come on, buddy…_

There was no placating Jounouchi. After somehow convincing the nurses that he was Honda's brother, the blond installed himself at his best friend's bedside, and refused to move. He blamed himself – that was plain to see – and not even Yuugi's gentle reasoning or Otogi's threats could convince him otherwise.

Jounouchi caught sight of Otogi through the glass with tortured eyes, and slowly shook his head. Green eyes darted a glance up and down the hall, and seeing no intruders, Otogi gestured to the door hopefully. A listless shrug was the only response.

_I'll take that as about as close to a 'come on in' as I can get._

He slipped into the room, and commandeered the stool on the opposite side of Honda's bed. "Nothing?" He whispered.

Jounouchi shook his head again, but otherwise said nothing.

"He's gotta be better in three weeks. Maybe he'll open his eyes soon."

"I dunno."

Otogi's eyes narrowed. Softened in understanding.

"Look, man, it's not your fault."

"Yes it–" Jounouchi started to protest, but the other cut him off.

"Outside." Otogi stood up abruptly, circled the bed, grasped the blond's arm and yanked him out of the room before he could say a word. Once the door clicked safely shut behind them, he turned.

"Cool your jets, Jou. You didn't know he was going to take off like that, did you?"

"Well…no…"

"Exactly. _Nobody _did. And blaming yourself isn't going to help him out."

"He wouldn't _be _in this mess if I'd just kept my big mouth shut!"

"No, he wouldn't _be _in this mess if he had the smarts to wear his _helmet_."

Jounouchi turned to the window of Honda's room, and pressed both hands against the cool surface. "Why didn't I just shut up?"

Underneath the self-berating tone, Otogi heard another voice. _Why didn't I notice my best friend's pain? Why didn't I see how much it would upset him…? _His heart clenched, and just for a moment, he squeezed Jounouchi's shoulder as they stood together in front of the glass.

"If you're guilty of anything, Jou, so am I."

Somehow, pain shared was easier to bear. Neither had asked. Sure, he hadn't wanted help, but walls were made to be broken, and if they'd really _wanted _to help, they could have pressed him. Chased him down.

Otogi winced. He'd _tried_. Three weeks later, and the memory was still as fresh in his mind as though it were only an hour ago. After some minor scrambling, he'd found his keys and taken off after Honda on his own bike. His quarry apparently had better equipment, or a better knowledge of the streets, as he'd managed to elude Otogi for all of twelve blocks. Then, when Honda swung a hard left, Otogi cleared the corner in time to see him swerve to miss an old lady with an armful of groceries…

…brake to miss a little kid…

…spin out…

…and leave a bloody track across the pavement.

He hadn't even known he was screaming until his own throat closed and would bear no more.

The rest of the day was a blur of flashing lights and emergency rooms, and Honda's blood soaked into his tee-shirt.

_I wasn't fast enough. I didn't try hard enough. If I'd caught you before you got out of the house, you might not have left, or you'd have at least left with your helmet. And maybe I'd be there with you, instead of watching you die from out here._

_Don't die…not like this…_


	7. Acroyali

_Chapter Seven_

_

* * *

_

_Please God just let me die…_

Honda groaned as he turned over on his pallet and discovered yet another new muscle. He could handle the pike, the dagger, and the sword with the best of the new recruits. By lucky chance, he'd even managed to strike a 'kill' on Jounouchi. Once. For which Jounouchi had thoroughly retaliated by upping his sparring partners from fellow recruits to seasoned members of the palace guard.

Oh, he _hurt_. Were dreams supposed to hurt this bad?

There was a big, fat difference between the dreams he'd had and what he was going through now.

Two, actually. First off, when he was _dreaming_, he hadn't been able to do a damn thing. He was just a passenger while his body moved on its own, felt its own feelings, and utterly ignored him. Now he was lord and master of his own arms and legs, but he had a head full of unpredictable memories that kept popping up without warning and hitting him in the gut like a sucker punch.

Second, he hadn't actually _lived _any of the time he'd felt passing in the other dreams. Now, he'd been here for…what…three weeks? A turn of his head to the wall of his quarters and the charcoal scratches thereon registered that yes, it had been. Almost four.

And for every bruise that had faded in that time, Jounouchi presented him with a brand new set, in interesting new places. The man – his mentor? – insisted that his name was _not _Jounouchi, but Honda's subconscious continued to rebel, as it did to the name that Jounouchi had given _him_.

What did it matter? He ached in places that he didn't know he _had_, and in another two minutes, Jou would be coming down the hallway to collect him for another hard day of training. When he hadn't wanted to know what was in store for him, all that long time ago…his instincts had been absolutely right on.

It was the most realistic dream he'd ever had. If it _was _a dream.

_I don't know how in the hell I got here, or what I'm doing here, but if there's a way out, I'm taking it._

Until that way and his chance to take it came, unfortunately, the point was just to stay alive.

_Okay. Retract my previous statement, God._

At least he was better off than the low slaves – though Jounouchi made it _very _clear to him that he was only one scant step above them, and one mistake could send him plunging back down there again. He had his own room – private, for the most part – he had regular meals, and his work was _peanuts _compared to the hard labor down in the quarries and along the walls of the temples being constructed outside the palace walls.

This was Egypt. He'd figured that out on the second day, when his 'mentor' led him from the high wooden walls of the arena and through the city to the palace. Somehow, he'd managed to take a serious jump back in time, too. There were no jet trails overhead, no hydraulic lifts or cranes, and no indoor plumbing.

It took some getting used to.

_Heh. Understatement of the century. Whatever century this is._

But if three weeks had passed, there was no reason why it wouldn't last another week. Or two.

Or years…

But he didn't want to think about _that _possibility.

Desperate, lonely tears began at last to well. He was alone in a world of strangers. Now, at last, he knew how Mai had felt, a few months and a lifetime ago.

Strange…her image kept treacherously changing, every time he tried to imagine her. When he saw her, she was lithe and strong, brown as a berry, and clad in leather from her boots to the thong that bound long black hair into a tail behind her. A long tunic of white linen protected her skin from the sun, but the wind billowed it, exposing her in glimpses.

She was one of his own people. He knew this on an instinctive level.

There was one of those unexpected clinches of pain, again. Honda rubbed at his eyes in frustration, and sat up with another groan. He heard the steady, measured footfalls of his mentor, and got to his feet. Damn if Jounouchi would find him crying…

That thought led to a stinging that had nothing at all to do with his new memories or his new bruises.

It would be worth any embarrassment or punishment to look into eyes that shone with recognition and glowed with love. He missed his friends more than any other part of his 'old' life. But the Jounouchi that he knew _now _was standing in his doorway, frowning as he assessed his pupil with…was it worry? Anticipation?

_If this is my dream, why can't I make you remember me?_

"The pharaoh will watching you today at your practices. If He is pleased with you, you will join me as personal bodyguard to the Son of Ra."

"Yes, sir." By some strength of will over the weeks, Honda had at last controlled the muscle that jumped in his jaw every time he said 'sir' to the boy. It was difficult to believe that Jounouchi was really no older than himself – had he been trained to this life from birth?

"His Exalted Majesty has graciously offered the use of one of His Legion for your spar today." Jounouchi turned, and by force of habit, Honda fell in step behind him. "I expect you to do your best."

…_Legion…?_

"I will, sir."

"I made you what you are. Do not fail me."

"No, sir."

"Good lad," Jounouchi clapped him on the shoulder, and as they reached the end of the corridor, he led them into the morning light of the arena.

His opponent stood at the center, huge and muscled and oozing deft skill. Honda tried not to cringe. _I can't even play a decent game of Duel Monsters. What says I can beat some guy twice my size with a freaking sword!_

_Three weeks of aching muscles say so, _the tiny voice of confidence replied.

The pair of fighters stretched, jogged together to warm up in the dry, frosty air, and then set to sparring with blades.

_Live _blades. No more wooden stakes, or pot metal that lost an edge in a heartbeat. These were not steel, but the beaten metal they were forged from was hard and strong, and _sharp_.

Honda brandished his sword and shield, and eyed the other man's blade. It looked a little familiar, to be honest…flattened and broadened at the very end, and curved in its lines. Unlike any of the other swords. And the other swordsman himself seemed uncannily familiar as well. The expression…the sigils on the broad face of the blade as it glinted almost orange in the new light…

The Flame Swordsman!

_Oh. Shit._

Realization dawned with a shock of fear, as the other man rushed him. But muscle memory took over where momentary terror left off, and the initial ringing of metal filled the empty stadium.

Clash. Thrust, slash, and dodge out of the way.

Duck.

Roll. Come up behind, and sweep his opponent's legs from under him.

_Glad I didn't slack off in fencing class, at least._

The fellow swordsman hit the ground hard, and staggered to his feet only through a struggle.

_I'm winning!_

Honda waited for him to regain his guard, and moved in again.

Unexpectedly, the flash from his opponent's sword shone in his eyes with the burn of fire, and he yelped.

Fire lanced him utterly, then, as the stranger's sword scythed between his ribs. He fell.

Familiar, blessed darkness closed over him again.


	8. Interlude

_Chapter Eight_

* * *

Voices. _Familiar _voices.

They drifted over him in soft tones. He could just barely catch them.

"The nurse told me that his mom just left. They had to _order _her to leave…she hasn't slept in weeks."

_Anzu. That's Anzu…! But where did she come from…one minute I was…_

"I know. When she's not here, Jounouchi is."

"Hey, Otogi's here all the time, too, man."

_Yuugi. Jounouchi…_

Honda's heart ached to hear them. These were the people who knew his name, who knew him as best friends and comrades. To hear Jou as the teenager who _didn't _tote a blade across his back and threaten him with a life of servitude every time he fell down.

And then…

"What, so I'm not allowed to worry about him, too?"

**_Otogi_**.

The other's voice was a catalyst, driving him out of the catatonic state he'd been trapped in. His memories returned as he dragged them over sand and thousands of years. Someone had called his name, just before he'd gone down.

_Was it you? _

_I'm sorry. All of you. This was so stupid…Don't worry about me, I'll be all right. _

He stirred. With stirring came shock of sensation, and _hurt_. Dark eyes rolled beneath the lids as his teeth gritted against new pain. "Nn…"

Every other sound in the room stopped. As one, four pairs of worried eyes swung around to pin Honda. If he could have seen them, he would have squirmed. Then they melted into an anxious babble of voices, and his tenuous grip on reality slipped.

"Honda, are you awake?"

"Please, say something!"

"Come _on_, man! Wake up…!"

Something was pulling him away. He didn't want to go – fought it – but in the end, he had no choice.

To their cries of dismay, he went.


	9. Challenge Accepted

_Chapter Nine_

_

* * *

_

_Was that a dream? I don't get it. I should be dead, right? Then again, I thought I was dead before when I ate concrete._

_Concrete?_

His mind couldn't fathom the word, grown foggy and distant about the edges.

Whatever. It wasn't important now.

_They were all so worried about me…_

_What was I doing in a hospital bed? Does that mean I'm still alive? Am I in a coma? Is Egypt a dream? But it's too real to be one._

_This doesn't make any sense. Somebody _please _wake me up…to…er…wherever._

Thankfully, the black velvet void he'd been floating in dissipated, painting the insides of his eyelids a comforting red and thus ending the inner monologue. The clamor of friends' voices had long since died away, replaced by a single new and damnably familiar tenor.

"It has been quite some time since a warrior evaded my Swordsman for longer than a few minutes. As I recall, the last time _you _challenged him, you were herded about like a goat."

Honda's eyes flickered open.

_Where am I?_

Blue morning sky. Aching muscles and fatigue. Sweat. Sand in places he didn't want to think about. Then, with a flash of desperation, he remembered.

_Right._

"No goat that I know of may heft a sword, Most Exalted. As your Swordsman is magic, and my pupil and I are mortal, that is hardly a fair blow."

Jounouchi's voice had a decided edge to it as he responded to the other's deeper tones. A rich chuckle was the only response.

"Calm yourself, my love. I am hardly taking you to task for it, am I?"

'_Love'? _

The words wrenched a full-body twitch of shock from Honda, and the teenager sat bolt upright, gaze shifting uneasily from his mentor to the stranger, and back again as he tried to sort it out.

_Come on, think. In this dream, everybody you've met is someone you already know. So…if Jounouchi is…_ Honda chanced a wary glance upward to study the newcomer's face…

_Then _he _must be…_

Large, slanted eyes – of a dark color that glinted violet in the strengthening sunlight of morning. A man of small stature, but with the athletic build and square jaw of his old friend. He was resplendent in another dazzlingly white kilt, and sandals similar to Honda's own make, and his skin was the same rich, sun-burnished tawny as the other two men in the stadium.

And there the resemblance stopped.

In addition to the clothing, the young man bore a circlet of gold about his hair as a sign of his station, along with a magnificent jewel-encrusted gold collar that fell in a waterfall of plates across his chest. Gold and amethyst studs glittered at his ears, while his wrists and biceps glowed with elegantly hammered cuffs and armclasps.

_But…Yami's no older than the rest of us! He can't be a pharaoh…he's just a teenager!_

And yet, Yami it truly was. In spite of the inexplicable jump in time, the pharaoh's hair was the same – the high and brightly-colored three-point confection that he wore with the dignity of a royal headdress. Which somehow wasn't at all surprising…if someone as ancient and powerful as the spirit of the Puzzle chose to keep most of his shape…who could order him otherwise?

_But this is a _dream_. Of course he's going to look the same. Though that doesn't really explain Jou. Or anyone else I've seen so far… _

As one, the two teenagers standing over him caught his guarded glances, and arched an eyebrow apiece. His opponent was nowhere to be seen – and for that matter, why the hell wasn't _he_ dead? Frantically, Honda patted down his side where the sword had pierced. The flesh was whole and unbroken, though he flinched to touch it. Had the other guy just grazed him, after all?

Without further recourse, Yami extended his hands to the youth to draw him to his feet. The Honda within – who held memories of a warrioress-Mai and a murdered tribe of nomads – quailed fearfully at standing eye-to-eye with the pharaoh; shook with terror to touch those fine, golden palms. For once, he gave the inner instinct due credit, and accepted the aid with hesitation. After all, Honda reasoned, if _this _Yami was anything like the one Honda remembered, he was a man who would sacrifice anything and everything for a single purpose.

He respected and cared deeply for the ancient spirit…but at the same time…feared him.

_Pleasedontkillmepleasedontkillmepleasedontki-_

"Well done, soldier," Yami praised.

How long had he been holding his breath? Honda's noisy exhalation of relief received a frown from Jounouchi, and an amused chuckle from Yami…or whatever his name was in this place…

"Thank you." What else _could _he say?

Yami didn't acknowledge the clumsy attempt at gratitude, as he turned a little to nod toward a carved-stone bas relief tablet at one end of the arena, tall as a man and etched with the uncanny likeness of Honda's previous opponent. Even now, members of the pharaoh's house guard were busily lifting the statuary to remove it from the walled field.

The outlandish gear the carved man wore resonated with an old memory…a memory of battle…strange clothes and dangerous giants that loomed overhead…

_Odd. Why didn't I notice it before? Oh…right. I was too busy getting my butt kicked by the big guy._

He had no more time to wonder, as Yami commanded his attention once again.

"The warrior that you faced is not of this realm. He is one of my unseen guardians…I allowed him far enough onto this plane to be tangible, but not to _really _damage you." The pharaoh explained evenly, as though every bit of it made logical and perfect sense.

Honda swallowed noisily and managed a nod. So magic and realms and planes of existence were _here_, too?

_Well, that explains the magically disappearing swordsman. They come up with more and more original ways to give me new bruises._

Some of his anxiety transmitted itself to his companions, and Yami squeezed the hands he held briefly before releasing them. "Even if you cannot understand, there is no reason to fear. As of today, these creatures will _never _be turned upon you again – as long as you are a loyal servant of the gods and a guardian of the throne."

"He passed?" Jounouchi asked, incredulous. Yami favored him with a smile and an affirmative nod.

"He will join you as one of my elite guard. You have trained him well, my love, in this short time that I have given you for the purpose."

"Thank you, Most Exalted," Jounouchi replied, and Honda swallowed a smile at the other man's twisting of the term into an affectionate nickname. He remembered with a tang of sorrow that in the future – or wherever his body lay – Jounouchi and Yami had been separated by the same forces that brought the Flame Swordsman to battle with Honda.

"Tell me your name, soldier," Yami requested, breaking the reticent teen out of his thoughts once again.

"Honda," He answered, without thinking. Jounouchi gave him a mildly irritated look, before hastening to explain.

"I told him that it is an odd name, even for his people…and gave him a more fitting one…but he _apparently_ will have none of it." The other warrior's tone had the bite of steel at Honda's apparent disrespect, but Yami raised a hand for silence.

"He is free to take any name he wishes. 'Honda,' it is."

Did Yami's eyes flash with something other than amusement? It had seemed for a scant second as though there was recognition there…a connection of the name to a face that the pharaoh _remembered_.

They looked at one another for a long moment, saying nothing. And then…smiled…

The brief flash was gone almost as soon as it came.

They led him off without another word, and Honda followed the appropriate two steps behind and to the right of Yami's side, while Jounouchi took the left. This position seemed just as right as the bond between the pharaoh and his bodyguard – as though protecting the smaller teenager from danger was a part of his life from the moment of his very existence.

* * *

Time passed, stretching from weeks to months in what seemed mere eyeblinks. The memories of his old life…or future life…faded to ghosts and phantoms, as they surely would while he still lived in a harsh present of sand and heat and danger.

And danger there was, first and foremost. Assassins were everywhere. He'd flushed out a trip-wire and a poison dart only just last week from Yami's dueling arena, though the perpetrator had yet to be named. Only a few days ago, Jounouchi had to see the palace cooks about replacing a food-taster lost to poison at banquet. And all along the way were psychedels and radicals, spies, upstarts, bounty hunters and cold-blooded hired killers with a thirst for Yami's blood.

The most subtle, however, were the elite – wealthy countrymen with unplumbed depths of patience. Those who knew of Yami's addiction, and would take the throne when at last he fell.

_They_ waited with the eager anticipation of hyenas about a lion's kill.

Sad times had fallen on them all. Honda and Jounouchi's charge was obsessed with the game. He was the lotus-eater, lost in dreams and fantasies of future deeds. He dreamed of horrendous creatures far beyond any grasp of fevered imagination. He dreamed of what power these creatures could bring to Egypt, and how they could be used to protect the sandlocked kingdom's borders from marauders; protect its people from bandits and the armies of land-hungry fellow rulers. According to what little Honda could glean from Jounouchi, the pharaoh had been this way for years…only just now was the divine entertainment twisting out of anyone's control.

Only now had the God Monsters been unlocked from their ageless boundaries. Only now were they at the beck and call of the Duelists who possessed the sigils and incantations of their summoning.

Yami controlled the Saint Dragon now. And slowly, the incredible power held by the great red, writhing beast ate away at his mind. It was rumored that the Guardian of Ra had already driven its 'owner' insane, and that those who summoned the Saint Dragon and The Divine Punisher would be next.

One day the pharaoh would fail in his dangerous dance with the Shadow Realm and its creatures. And it seemed as though that time were now.

* * *

Honda knew the stranger before he spoke; before one of the last tatters of his memory surfaced. The narrowing of Jounouchi's eyes spoke plainly enough, as did the calculating way that Yami regarded his prospective opponent.

He could only watch in helpless anger as his pharaoh accepted the challenge to duel a priest from the outer vestiges of the wasteland. Only a powerful man could survive the harsh conditions there, and the youth who approached the throne a week ago certainly seemed in fine fettle. He was impeccably dressed in blue linens and beset with gold. His stature, while slim, was physically imposing even from his place below the royal dais.

Kaiba.

"I am innocent of the charges unjustly laid upon me," the priest demanded in smooth, velvet tones that made the hair on Honda's neck bristle, "The accusations that keep me in exile must be lifted at once."

"You have been accused of coercing the followers of Thoth – the god of _your _priesthood – to give their lives in appeasement of the Shadow Games." Yami replied, leaning forward to fix his hostile petitioner with an unblinking gaze, "Do you deny it? Choose your words carefully, I caution you."

"No, I do not deny it." Honda and Jounouchi's hands went for their blades as Kaiba stalked closer to the throne, expression unreadable except for the anger blazing from his pair of startlingly blue eyes. "But would you also deny sacrificing the lives of Ra's worshippers to appease your _own _creatures?"

A ripple of consternation murmured its way through the onlookers. Jounouchi stepped forward, fists clenched at his sides. "You will not approach!"

Kaiba shot the guard a look of loathing and dismissal, and turned passionate eyes upon the pharaoh once more. "Would you have your guards slit my throat to quiet me? Would you hide from your people the fact that you have _no _more control over your minions than any other mortal man? Admit, _Pharaoh_, that you have killed _more _innocents to feed your Saint-Dragon than I have _ever _sacrificed for all the creatures that I summon!"

"No, I…"

"Admit that it controls you! Admit that it calls to you…urges you to challenge more and more impossible opponents…"

"Silence! Not another word!" Yami was on his feet now, every fiber quivering with rage the equal of his accuser's ire.

"That you let it feed as it wishes in return for its power! If there is blood upon _my _hands, there is blood upon _yours_!"

Silence dropped across the listening ears with the same ultimate, heavy and muffling _thud _of a dead man striking the ground. Hundreds of dark and fearful eyes pinned the pharaoh and the priest where they stood, while a deafening hush filled the great auditorium.

"I do not need to murder innocents to control my beasts." Yami's quiet reply came at last.

"Then prove it! Play the Shadow Game with me, _on your own_!"

Over Yami's head, Honda and Jounouchi exchanged fearful glances. Both knew the falsehood of their beloved leader's words. He must feed the Saint-Dragon human souls…offer it the prize of his opponent's servants and his own to bend it to his will. For so long, he had been able to justify the deed…he was doing it for the future, he said.

Was it true? If not, then Jounouchi and Honda's hands were just as bloodstained as their pharaoh's. And Honda could read the searing pain of _real _truth in Jounouchi's eyes as he looked down at last to the small teenager that he guarded with his life.

With his heart.

The child-pharaoh, grown beyond his years by the reins of power he held, and twisted by the tiny promise of hope behind the terrible price of commanding beasts of the Shadow Realm.

_Please, Yami. For your sake, and for his…don't do this… _Honda begged silently.

The answer fell like an axe.

"I accept."

The roar of the crowd was only seconded by the cries beyond the palace walls, as guards sounded the alarm.

Their heads snapped up in tandem at the sound.

Honda shoved past Kaiba on his way down the dais – taking an iota of sadistic pleasure in the graceless backstep the priest took to avoid losing his balance. He galloped to the end of the hall, where a wide-eyed, terrified messenger delivered the news just moments before hundreds of voices atop the walls echoed it from every corner of the palace.

"Rogues! Rogues attacking the city! Desert rogues!"


	10. Sacrifice

_Chapter Ten_

_

* * *

_

Jounouchi was the first to react. He lunged forward, caught Kaiba up by the collar, and shook him with the ferocity of a terrier with a rat. "_You _called them!" He hissed, "You brought these cannibals on our heads!"

A self-satisfied smirk twisted the priest's lips, and without a touch, drove a bolt of raw _power _into Jounouchi's unprotected gut that brought the warrior to his knees. As Jounouchi crouched, fighting waves of nausea – by Ra's balls, he _would _not retch at the feet of this bastard – Kaiba towered over him.

Over all of them. Honda stood to his back, out of sight. His fingers clenched on the hilt of his sword, preparing to draw it out while he stared, transfixed by those tempting shoulder blades…if he could just…

"Do not presume to touch me," Kaiba warned over his shoulder, fixing Honda with one dangerous blue eye. "I can _easily _drop you, just as I did your comrade."

Then he turned back to Yami, one lean arm raised to point accusingly toward the pharaoh gone rigid with rage at the apex of the royal dais.

"I called them, yes! To keep your _whelps _busy defending the palace, while _you _have no option but to duel me alone." He leered, "Face me, _pharaoh, _and prove to me that you are no murderer…that you need no chanters, no souls but your own to bend the Saint-Dragon to your bidding. Unless…you truly _are _a murdering coward…" Now he spun in a whirl of white and blue, to face the cowering audience, and a seething Honda.

"I formally challenged the pharaoh to a game of Duel Monsters! And by the gods, I will reclaim my innocence and show you all what a bloodthirsty coward holds your throne!"

_And I formally challenge _you _to let me kick your ass, _Honda snarled inwardly as he leveled a ferocious glare on the arrogant priest. The urgency was increasing…they had only minutes before every able-bodied man _had _to be out on the walls, defending the palace. They had to decide _now. _Yami had to make his choice _now._

"No…" Jounouchi protested quietly from the floor. Kaiba's head snapped to the side to focus narrowed eyes on the fallen warrior. Teeth gritted against the pain, the soldier wavered unsteadily to his feet, one arm cradling his tender midsection as though to keep the whole of it from falling to the floor. "No. Don't accept his challenge!"

Honda caught his breath. Yami, unmoved, stared icily at Jounouchi. The warrior continued unchecked, moving step by staggering step to Honda's side, who willingly bore him up and offered the support of a shoulder until he could find his own feet again.

"Don't…don't do this," Jounouchi gasped, "He's not worth it…"

There was an unspoken statement that hung in the air beneath the other's breathless bravado. _You can't handle the Saint-Dragon on your own, my beloved, no matter how much you posture. You know it, and I know it. And if it kills you…what are we fighting _for_…?_

Honda gazed up at Yami with the same conviction in his eyes. Time was slipping away from them…soon enough he and Jounouchi would have to be with the rest of the house guard…the cries of dying men beyond the room were testament enough to that fact.

Yami, in turn, gazed down at them.

Precious seconds passed, the time stretching from the two pairs of tortured eyes to Yami's unreadable expression.

Yami lidded gorgeous, suddenly pain-filled violet eyes.

He nodded for Kaiba to follow him to the dueling arena, deep in the underground belly of the holy temple of the Sun God.

"_**NO!"**_

Honda tried desperately to control the shock of resonance that echoed out of the future at the sound of that heart-wrenching sob of denial, and clung to Jounouchi as he flung himself after the pharaoh and the priest's retreating backs. He _knew _that sound…he'd heard it before…

Otogi.

The sound of Otogi's voice as the dark ponytailed teenager had been forced to watch Honda dance with death before…helpless to do a thing save bear witness to his own stupidity.

He clenched Jounouchi's arms in a steel-vise grip, and turned the other soldier away. "We have a war to fight! If the rogues reach the palace, it won't matter what happens down there!"

For another few ticking precious seconds, there was no sound but the harsh rasp of Jounouchi's breath against his shoulder. That, too, quieted, and Jounouchi looked up.

His eyes were cold with hate.

"Let's kick some ass, trainee."

Despite himself, a feral smile crossed Honda's lips, and together, they dashed out to the walls.

Back in the cold world of reality, Otogi was the only body left in Honda's hospital room. The doctors were amazed at the support shown by the unconscious boy's friends…there were always at least one or two by his bedside until visiting hours ended. At last, Yuugi and Anzu coaxed Jounouchi into taking a well-deserved rest – but only after Otogi promised to watch him until the blond teenager could come back.

_Like Honda's going to go anywhere until then?_

_And like I'd be able to do anything else._

His mouth quirked. Oh, hell, no sense in denying it, after all.

With a stealthy glance toward the viewing glass to be sure that nobody was watching, his hand crept out and threaded through the unresponsive strength of Honda's fingers. Even if he never did so again, at least he could do so now and not worry about what his friend would have to say about it.

From the corner of his eye, he caught movement across Honda's features, and his gaze flashed up to scan the other boy's face eagerly for any signs of waking.

But no. The tall brunet's face was a mask of peace again, though replacing the thin-lipped reflexive frown was the phantom of a smile.

Otogi returned the expression, and squeezed the flaccid fingers wrapped with his own.

Treacherous smile.

If only he could have seen the venom behind it.


	11. No Time For This

_Chapter Eleven_

* * *

The fighting was brutal and fast.

Horses for Honda and Jounouchi were waiting just at the gates of the palace, and the pair flung themselves over the broad, matched chestnut backs to race to the verges of the city. Behind them now rode the greater part of the palace's house guard…some had stayed behind as a last effort, but all knew that if Yami's _private_ guard failed to subdue the attacking rogues…

…The only hope left was to pray for mercy.

At this moment, Honda was grateful for the long-ago saddlesores…he could sit a horse with ease, muscle memory from his unremembered past as a nomad replacing what the normally motorcycle-bound teenager knew by reflex. Jounouchi's face was a still mask of rage, and Honda shuddered to see it. In all the time that he'd known his friend, there was no memory – past or future – of _ever _seeing the boy seethe with so much hatred.

The horses' hooves flung wheals of sand to either side, and their compatriots fanned out behind in a practiced formation. "Stay beside me," Jounouchi commanded, chancing a look to his left at the fellow teenager riding there, "I don't want to lose you."

They plunged to the edge of the battlefield, where the first troops had already intercepted the charging rogues. _Five tribes, together?_ Honda gasped audibly and caught a mouthful of dirt from his mount's heels, _what measure of gold and lies did that…that unholy _bastard_ feed them?_

Jounouchi's right arm flung upward, and with a ringing, keening cry, he charged downslope, commanding the others to follow. As one body, horsemen poured into the fray.

It was a messy style of fighting, Honda had to admit. Foggy remnants of strategies glossed over in textbooks flashed past, none of which seemed to follow what his comrade had ordered.

"What's the plan?" Honda yelled after the other man's flying hair.

"We charge them!"

"And after that?"

"What more do you need!"

That's _the plan?_

Thankfully, Jounouchi's brusque reply had only sketched the basics, and as such, Honda was amazed to see at a glance behind him the further stretching of soldiers to either side of them in their wild downward plunge.

The sky overhead was the washed out, heat-exhausted blue of a summer afternoon, and the full sun poured its wrath across the half mile of scorching sand where the combatants met. By sheer luck, Yami's army had overtaken the rogues before they gained high ground, and the band of fallen enemy bespoke the prowess of the King's archers. Now, the kingdom's defenders tackled their foemen in a dish formed by two great, wind-carved dunes, steadily raining arrows down on the nomadic fighters as swordsmen spoiled to take their place in the battle.

Honda squinted in the sunlight, half expecting to see that Kaiba's summoned steel were no less than three-headed dragons or malevolent purple djinns.

Each of the five tribes fought in their own contingent, neither mixing with nor defending the other four.

_They seem so…familiar…_

Memories and a wave of forgotten pain rushed down on Honda again, and he could name them by the hue of their clothes and the make of their armor, and the bright strings of colored glass beads they wore about their necks.

_Children of the Fox, of the Jackal, of the Snake, of the Scorpion…_

…_Of the _Horse_…_

He couldn't breathe. A hard upward buck of his mount forced the air out of his lungs in a whoosh, and back in again rapidly.

He was one of them…one of the Children of the Horse!

_They…are…my…family? _

He knew, then, that if he watched closely, he would see the flying raven hair of Mai, the only female warrior of the entire clan.

They were _not _all destroyed!

"I can't!" He shouted. Jounouchi turned back to look at him, just before they reached within range of the nomads' archers.

"You_ what_?"

"They're my _people!_"

Jounouchi's glance flashed from the people, to Honda, and back again. "Not now. Oh, Sekhmet's tits…not _now!_"

He raced ahead, then, digging his knees into his steed to carry him past with a toss of angry sand. The other troops flowed around Honda, leaving him standing, staring.

_These are my people. I can't attack them._

_But Jou…Yami…they're counting on me to help…_

_They saved me from spending my life in the quarries as a slave…_

His eyes narrowed at that.

_A slave to the pharaoh! What do I owe them? All they did was save me from the same fate of my own people at _their _hands!_

Then he remembered the hours of camaraderie with Jounouchi, and the trust that he and the pharaoh gave to him, despite what he was and where he'd come from.

Were these the same men he had grown to care for with more depth of feeling than before…?

His people had taken a stand against a pharaoh they hated for the enslavement of their own. Doubtless, it hadn't taken much gold _or _lies to send them out en force against the pharaoh's army…

But he couldn't.

He _wouldn't_…

And then Jounouchi let out a hoarse scream of pain, and it didn't matter anymore.

Honda kneed his foaming horse into action, drew his crude blade from its sheath, and plunged down to save his friend. No matter what Jounouchi or Yami had done…they were his _friends_, in this life and the next. He would easily give his life for both, no matter what.

The arrows were exhausted, and now blades slammed into iron blades as the pharaoh's guard ringed what was left of the nomadic rogues. _Almost all Of The Horse,_ Honda noted with a twinge of pride, and fought his way to Jounouchi's side, in time to hack away the arm clenching an opponent's sword as it flashed toward his comrade's ribs. The other man favored him with half a glance and no more, but from the renewed strength in his sword-arm, it was plain to see that Honda's return had awakened his hope once more.

They fought, shoulder to shoulder among their foes – many of the nomads bore wooden pikes instead of blades, and soon enough had been unhorsed and taken captive. The guard closed their ranks in an ever-tightening circle around the rogues, until at last, all but two had given up their arms to be spared.

"_No! Don't give up! Fight to the death!"_

On a ghost-gray stallion was a warrior in the throes of red-hot rage, tail of raven hair arcing from a taut leather binding at the back of his head. His face and the rest of his form was invisible in voluminous, earthy crimson pants and tunic. Beside him was a woman on a bay mare, long hair as blue-black and shining as her mount's and her companion's, and whipping free.

* * *

"_Are you going to just give up?"_

_Lying on his back again. No surprise there. A defiant little girl stood over Honda, magnificent shadowed hair twisting and curling back upon itself in the soft breeze…a living entity all on its own. A patient horse's muzzle nudged his cheek._

"_I'll just fall off again."_

_She snorted._

* * *

The voice had belonged to the woman, and as she spoke, her charge reared, the movement echoed by the man's horse as well.

It was just the ponytailed warrior and the woman now in the ring.

"_You'll never take us alive!_"

Beside Honda, open-mouthed, Jounouchi took in the full curves of her athletic form, revealed in patches as the wind snatched at the pale white tunic she wore.

"A…_woman_…?"

* * *

"_Yuugi, Jounouchi, _everybody_, I appreciate your concern…"_

_Forced to watch, unable to help…_

_She'd…killed herself? No…something worse. Someone _else _had tried to kill her. And when it failed, had locked her away for a long time in her own mind…she'd never been the same…_

_MAI!_

* * *

Honda's expression was taut. "She's one of my people. Please…don't kill them…"

"No fear," Jounouchi soothed tightly, "I don't plan to." And at a terse command, Jounouchi's horse stepped forward, carrying him into the ring.

The pair of nomadic warriors stopped. Stared. Two pairs of eyes narrowed in tandem against the glare of the sun, and beneath them, their mounts stirred restlessly.

At the change in their demeanor, Honda reflexively kneed his own mare to guard Jounouchi's flank. He didn't want to raise a blade against _any _of his people…but there was no way that he could ever allow harm to befall one of his friends.

"Do you understand the words of the gods?" Jounouchi demanded.

The strange man made to answer, but deferred to his companion's hand upon his arm. They exchanged a terse word or two, before the gray stallion turned from the bay mare with a fierce shake of its rider's head, and the man leveled a steely gaze on the pair of them.

_Green_ eyes. Green eyes of such a vibrant emerald shade that nobody could have denied their familiarity. They were large and exotic, and glittered with the promise of a flaming soul, and when the wind lifted the crimson scarf protecting his face, it could be seen that tracing the man's left cheek beneath the well of an eye was the pale white of a scar.

_Not you, too…so familiar…_

"Yes, we _speak _that tongue. The better to trick your armies, bring low your guards and free the people _you _have enslaved!"

"Then lay down your weapons," Jounouchi continued, unflinching, "and do not pursue us further, and we will gladly set you free."

The stranger spat a retort passionately in his own tongue, incomprehensible to Jounouchi and the ring of guard.

"_I understand. I will gladly lay down my weapon…across your cowardly neck!_"

The red-clad warrior's hand clenched around the drawn blade he still bore, and before he knew what he was doing, Honda's mare leaped into action, landing forefeet first and spitting a spray of sand from her hooves as she slid to a stop.

Directly between Jounouchi and the stranger.

"_Try it, and die,_" Honda threatened in the tongue of the Children of the Horse. The blade he grasped hissed against the wind. The stranger snarled.

"_How is it that you understand our tongue? Tell me!_" He demanded. Honda's chin raised defiantly. He didn't have time for this. They needed to be back at Yami's side…_now_!

"_Because, _once" Honda replied, cooly, "_before my people became the lapdogs of a corrupted sorceror-priest, I was one of you._"

It was the best reason he'd come up with for fighting against them thus far…and to be honest, Honda was rather proud of it.

The stranger's fist clenched around the grip of his own blade.

"_You lie!_"

"_Tell me how it is that the Blessed of the Southern Wind have become little more than tools of a power-hungering madman. Are you no better than the yapping Children of the Jackal, begging for scraps?_"

All that could be heard before the other struck was an incomprehensible growl.

Jounouchi tried to block the stranger's path.

But in eyeblinks, Mai was there between the more experienced swordsman and his protégée, a pair of curving shortswords in her grip.

She locked his sword between her own and threw him off balance as her darkhaired sibling raced behind her.

Jounouchi staggered backwards with a hiss.

Meanwhile, Honda found himself face to face with a daunting adversary. He was of a height with his opponent…just as leggy, just as athletically honed. And he wielded a sword of craftsmanship very like Honda's own.

The wind of his passing grabbed the carmine scarf about his jaw, swept the loose ends from side to side in violent, threatening arcs. He may well have been a desert cobra, for his speed and skill.

The body of a young god, an elfin face, lively green eyes, and a wild mane of blue-black hair tamed into a severe ponytail. The specter grinned, and struck.

The scar flashed across Honda's line of sight, and at last, he understood.

Other eyes had borne that scar. But a scar of black…a tribal mark? He'd always wondered…and always, always just barely resisted the urge to brush his thumb against the slashing mark along that pale cheek; find out whether the downward needle-point of _kohl_-dark color was makeup or tattoo…

_Otogi!_

He fended off the first blow, and the second, and at the third, a lunging riposte threw his adversary off-balance long enough to grab a fistful of ponytail and yank Otogi to the ground.

Honda knelt, a knee on the other's chest and a blade threatening his throat, and darted a glance up to see how his comrade fared.

_God…no…not Jou…_

Mai had the other down, flat on his back, one blade risen in a backspin to lunge down and ram the ugly hammered point through his chest.

But she hadn't…not yet…

Instead, her eyes were wide, fearful as she at last caught sight of Honda and the stricken Otogi and stood frozen in her arrested downward arc.

He _meant_ something to her?

In the back of his mind, the Honda that recognized Otogi for what he was…

…What he _meant_…

…He was appalled, and terrified to the point of sobbing. It wasn't fair. _None _of this was any damn _fair!_

In another few months, if things hadn't calmed down, he would be absolutely, gibbering-insane.

But much later he would allow himself the luxury of tears. Right now, he pressed the blade of his sword harder against the pale arc of Otogi's throat, and leveled a defiant stare on Mai. "_Kill him,_" He shouted hoarsely, in the nomads' tongue, "_and _he _dies as well._" A nod of his head down to the choking youth underneath him, the harsh metal edge cuddled into the flesh just to the point of breaking skin.

With a curse, Mai dropped her swords, and Jounouchi took the respite to flip her to the ground. Honda sighed heavily with relief, and turned fearful eyes on Otogi, who glared up at him around the sword.

"_Kill me._" Otogi's pretty, exotic features were twisted into defiant rage.

_I'm sorry…_

And with that, Honda cold-cocked him.


	12. Let Go

_Chapter Twelve_

* * *

"How is he?" 

The soft inquiry startled Otogi out of an exhausted torpor, as he'd fallen asleep across Honda's bedside. Guh. There was a patch of drool on his forearm, his mouth _still _tasted like the greasy snack-machine popcorn, and…there was his free hand, fingers still treacherously twined with the unconscious youth's as they'd been since….when? A check of the clock over Honda's head said an hour ago.

Jounouchi regarded the scene from the doorway, careworn, haggard, and expressionless. With an unaccountable feeling of guilt, Otogi freed his hand from Honda's.

"Has he…?"

The blond left the question hanging, and sighed as all Otogi could offer in answer was a listless shrug.

"No better, no worse…that's good, I suppose, isn't it? The doctors say he can breathe on his own, and he responds to…uh…stimulus? The lights are on, but nobody's home. Though he…he smiled…"

"He did?"

At Otogi's nod, four eyes turned as one to study the fallen boy's peaceful mien. The brown were bright with hope and laced with guilt…the green softened by concern...

…from across the bedside, Jounouchi saw the flicker of tenderness smooth Otogi's features as the ponytailed inventor's fingertips caressed the sheet beside Honda's still palm, relaxed and open on the bedclothes. For a moment, the blond's shoulders tightened, eyes narrowed in confusion as he stared after the unexpected tableaux. What the hell…? No, it couldn't be! It _shouldn't _be! He thought…the pair of them were _always _fawning over Shizuka…

What had happened?

Jounouchi's eyes flickered towards the lithe form curled dejectedly at the bedside. This was an excessively long time to stand vigil for _anyone_. And he should know. He'd logged just as many hours in that very spot.

…Otogi? He'd chased after the taller boy…had called the ambulance, and then held Honda's head still until the paramedics could get there…they said he'd probably saved the injured boy from being choking to death on his own blood.

And then he'd called them all together, met them at the hospital doors with Honda's blood coating his shirt…and told them…hadn't his tears mingled freely with those of the others…?

Every day after that, Otogi came to the ward, if only to keep Honda's mother company – poor phantom of a woman as she was reduced to. Only just now, Jounouchi caught him asleep…clinging to his best friend's hand as though it were the only lifeline in a storm.

Otogi? In…in _love_?

_With Honda_?

It didn't make any _sense_!

_I need to sit down…_Jounouchi fell into the vacant visitors' chair beside the softly blipping machines, and _watched_, as Otogi already seemed lost again in his own game of guarding.

He looked awful.

He also looked very bored.

Well, there was something Jounouchi could do about that, wasn't there?

Despite himself, he found a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Here."

The soft _plumpf _of a handheld gaming platform hitting the coverlet brought Otogi's head shooting up. He stared at it. "What's this?"

"Something to do." Jounouchi replied, simply, from his place looming over Otogi's back. "You look _really _bored. It's just _Tetris_…that's all they had at the game room to rent."

Otogi went on staring at the game for another few moments, and Jounouchi harrumphed uncomfortably. "Look…I've…gotta go, you know? Dad's going to kick my butt if I screw up on another history test, so I've gotta study…"

It was a lame excuse, and he saw the truth in Otogi's upraised browline as the green-eyed boy turned back to meet his gaze. If Jou wanted to, he could study here. There was no earthly reason to go – didn't he _want _to be here? – unless...

He was backing off? Bowing out? No…that wasn't it, Otogi was sure. Honda and Jounouchi had been close, but not like _that_…had they?

"You don't have to," he protested, quietly.

"I gotta," Jounouchi insisted. "You…watch out for him for me, huh, Otogi? If anything happens to him on your watch, I'm coming after _you_, clear?"

"Crystal," Otogi grinned, "I won't let anything happen to him. Jou? Thank you…"

"Yeah," Jounouchi found himself smiling in return, and unbent his machismo long enough to squeeze Otogi's shoulder in silent camaraderie, before heading out.

He took one last look at the brunet, laid out and pale gold against the pillows.

_I'll see you tomorrow. You wake up, buddy, and you do it soon. _

_I don't want to have to comfort the Mascara Kid if you don't._


	13. Endgame

_Chapter Thirteen_

* * *

The corridor of shadows between the upper chambers and the dueling arena beneath the temple of Ra became a hellish maze, an endless series of twists and turns in what had once been a fairly straightforward passageway. Jounouchi and Honda came to a panting halt as they crashed against an unforeseen wall, one against the other.

"What the _hell_…?" Honda yelped reflexively, as he plunged against a soft, breathing resistance and bounced off with a stagger. Jounouchi – the body that took the brunt of contact with the wall – gasped out a blistering curse, before drawing back as well, sword drawn in the dark.

"The Shadows have changed our path. They lay across it now…waiting…like leopards in the palace garden." The whites of Jounouchi's eyes were all that Honda could make out – the dark irises were dilated to black, and stood like soulless wells in his face. "Honda, I…I fear that we are all doomed."

Then, like a blessing of the gods, beams of gilded light broke free from the evil dark. Their labyrinth had vanished. They stood before the doors of the Arena.

The battle was over.

Kaiba was a still form, sprawled on the smooth limestone floor. Honda looked down on him as they passed. The startling blue of his eyes was wide open and staring, lips parted in cold shock – as though he could not have imagined defeat, even in death.

His chest was still.

But there was no rejoicing…no glory in the victory.

"No! …_Damn _you…!"

Jounouchi crumpled to the floor beside the pharaoh's wildly convulsing body, a body taxed so far beyond its strength that even the thrashing limbs seemed heavy with exhaustion.

They won their battle.

Yami defeated Kaiba.

And yet…they lost.

Honda knelt on Yami's opposite side as Jounouchi pulled the resisting body into his arms and clutched him tightly to stay his wild throes; the swordsman's face a still mask of pain. "I wanted to tell you…I _tried_…oh, _gods_, didn't you _realize?_ Didn't you know that I wasn't trying to hurt you? That I _believe _in you?"

There was no response. The convulsions abruptly halted. Yami's velvet eyes rolled beneath his lids, but besides the labored rasp of his breath, it was the only sign that he still lived.

"Don't you _dare_ leave me, you ass! Not…not after all this…" Jounouchi threatened, "You're such an idiot! You knew you couldn't do this alone!"

"Jou…" Honda reached out to touch Jounouchi's shoulder in quiet understanding and comfort, but the other swordsman shrugged his hand away.

"Help me get him upstairs." Was the frigid order. Honda swallowed a sigh, and struggled to his feet, accepting the pharaoh's body as Jounouchi pressed him into his arms. Cold eyes razed Kaiba's pale, fallen form.

"I wish you could lie there until you rot," The warrior hissed, and bent, wrestling the priest's lifeless body into his arms, "but you defame the Son of Ra while you do."

"What are you going to _do _with him…?" Honda whispered fearfully, as he led them back up to the surface

"String him from the palace gates with the thieves," Jounouchi replied with a feral snarl. "Take the pharaoh to his rooms. I'll be back soon enough."

Neither of them had the free hand to push the heavy slab door over the underground entrance and secure the sacred portal.

They never saw the malevolent shadow slip into the arena after they'd gone, drawn by the remnant tatters of power.

Honda didn't ask Jounouchi what he really _had _done with Kaiba's body, but as the older warrior pointedly watched a column of smoke rising that evening from the desert's verge…he realized that he didn't have to.

The pharaoh – once so proud and strong a young man – was reduced to an invalid, weak as a kitten and hovering near death as he lay propped against a bank of pillows in his bedchambers. He did not speak. He did not eat. He merely breathed, and even that grew fainter with each passing day as his weakness grew.

He _was _dying, and everyone knew it.

The Saint-Dragon sapped all of its victims with inexorable venom, and as Jounouchi and Honda discovered when they plunged down into the lower chambers of the temple, its ire had already claimed Kaiba's life utterly.

Jounouchi never left his side – curse his duties, and let the palace walls crumble around them. Let the sky fall. Without his golden god to protect…he was lost.

Honda found solace in the prisoner's room – exchanging threats with one of the two nomads they'd brought in the day of Yami's…victory…

Neither the man nor the woman had allowed themselves to be tethered into slavery, but Jounouchi's last coherent command was to spare them from death, no matter what, and so they sat, chained in a dark prison to a cold wall, patiently awaiting their own demise.

Honda sat across the room from the chained man, legs folded, watching him. It was easier to watch the angry youth tear at his fetters and curse his name than bear witness to the terrible, sad silence in the King's bedchambers.

"_Kill me_."

Honda no longer winced at the command. Otogi asked for it daily, sometimes hourly.

"No."

"_Kill me or set me free. Or by the judgment of Sekhmet, when I am free I will draw a new smile across your throat where _you_ should have when you first had the chance_!"

"I don't have time for this. And you take yourself way too seriously."

"…"

"The sorcerer who hired you to attack the city is dead."

The previously cold emerald eyes blazed hotly for a moment, and subsided.

"_It was to be expected._" Otogi shrugged listlessly. "_He gorged himself on power, and choked._"

"You don't pity him?"

"_Why should I? He has done nothing to make me pity him. Save fall prey to his own ambition._"

The tone of disgust spoke volumes – and Honda had the distinct impression that the other man was asking himself why he'd ever thought otherwise of the dead priest.

"You would have liked to see him live."

"_I admired his skill. That is all_."

"You cared for him, or you would never have let him manipulate you the way he did." Now he was deliberately baiting the other man, speaking in familiar tones and prodding with observations sure to incite his anger. Oh, there were a dozen or so very _good _reasons for the ease with which Kaiba pulled the ranks together, but the Children of the Horse were not stupid…and rare were the reasons for anyone to charge into the jaws of certain death with clans that they distrusted.

But they did, however, trust their war leader.

No wonder Otogi was always asking for death.

"_I won't answer that._"

"It's true, isn't it?"

"_You don't know anything about me_!"

Honda shook his head adamantly. The other's insistence in speaking only in native tongue was beginning to frustrate him, but he kept his peace. If it was a deliberate power play, he didn't have time for these silly games. If it was defiance…it was a child's show of rebellion, and a fruitless one.

"I am one of your people," Honda insisted calmly, "whether you like it or not, I know everything about you. I know what drives you. I know your desires. The Children of the Horse cannot lie to me."

"_Then what is it that drives me?_" Otogi raised his chin defiantly, and Honda found himself chuckling. A memory resonated from the future like a phantom, and he could see Otogi's drilling glare. He was one of those rebels-without-a-cause then…but now…he had a purpose. And still it was the same Otogi. Even the passing of five millennia couldn't change that attitude.

"_Ka'desh,_" Honda spoke the word reverently, "Love. Love drives all of us."

"_Touching._" Was the ponytailed youth's dryly sarcastic comment. "_How philosophical._ _Come, prophet, tell me more._"

Honda flushed, but continued bravely on…speaking as much from his own heart as from the heart of the man deep within…the heart that could not remember this youth before him, but remembered what he stood for.

"Love of freedom, of truth; love of tribe…care for the family and for the friends, and for the animals that we ride, and the spirit-beasts that guide and guard our people and give us their names."

"_And_?" Otogi's voice was vaguely skeptical, "_Is that _all_, prophet_?"

"No, that's _not _all." He closed his eyes, feeling the inner struggle as he sought to drag a deeply buried memory from its hiding place. It wasn't one he knew…but he _knew _it was there. The words came in a rush of measured, foreign rhyme – the creed and call of the Children of the Horse.

"_We are a race of passion…our hearts thunder to the beat of our spirit-beast's hoof, our voices rise to answer his call, and our bodies are but vessels to carry his passion_."

Otogi sat upright, regarding him with interest, suddenly.

"_You speak very prettily, but were you old enough to know the meaning of those words before you were taken by these slow-blooded fools?_"

"It means that we are made to love one another, freely and without fear. We are _not _a people to be tied."

The eloquently expressive green eyes caught him up in a transfixing gaze, and Honda knew his mistake, then. He'd been led into the trap, and followed blindly.

"_The Fox are a people of cunning, the Jackal of hunger and fear. The Snake we have no truck with for their deception, and the Scorpion we avoid for their anger. If you know that we are a people of freedom, then surely you know how much these tethers kill us within. How can _you_, who call yourself one of my people, bind yourself to these men, and then ignore the pleas for mercy from your own?_"

"I…"

"_And moreover, why do you ignore what it is that burns within you? There is something. Every time you look upon me, there is something. I am one of _your _people, just as much as you are one of mine. The Children of the Horse cannot lie to the Children of the Horse…this much you said before._" Otogi's slender throat tipped to one side as he regarded Honda questioningly, and across from him, the taller warrior caught his breath. "_What is it you remember? Do you know me? And why do you stay so often at my side?_"

"You wouldn't want to know the answer if I told you," Honda replied miserably, and rose. "I'll come back later."

"_If I haven't talked one of the guards into giving me my death._"

"Yes. If you haven't managed that by tomorrow, of course."

Mai took matters into her own hands. How she had secured the arrowhead, none of them knew for sure. But she had forced herself and Otogi into a life without dignity, and a life without freedom. A life without freedom was no life at all, and in the depths of the night, she spilled her own lifeblood with a slash of both wrists.

They found her in the morning, the symbol of her people painted on the wall of her cell in drying ruddy-brown streaks.

She lay slumped beneath her artwork on the floor, a pleased smile curving the full lushness of her cooling lips.

Three men mourned her that day. The Honda that _was_, the Honda that _remembered_, and her raven-haired companion in the adjacent cell.

_There's too much bloodshed…_

Everything seemed to be falling to pieces around them. And through it all, the vultures waited…the jackals circled their dying fire – their dying pharaoh – with gleaming teeth and glowing, hungry eyes.

He _remembered _Mai. Both as the free-spirited warrioress, and the fiercely independent young woman with a deck full of Amazons and the beauty of a model. These words meant nothing to his mind…just so much gibberish that his 'old' self supplied, and yet…the _image _of her persisted. And she was…_gone_…

"Hey!" One of the guards called out, upon looking into Mai's cell, "Hey boys, get over here! This one's done herself in!"

Honda caught their words from the corridor, and raced to peer over their shoulders. The scent of blood was heavy, and he turned away from the sight with a gag. His mentor had confided once that no matter how many corpses he saw, no matter how deadened Jounouchi became to pain and suffering, the sight of a friend in that sorry state would _never _soften with time.

He understood. At last.

And she hadn't even remembered his name.

Another echoed Honda's low, muffled sob. It snapped him – momentarily – out of his funk, and his head whipped around in search of the sound again. He stepped back, toward the open door of the _other _inmate's room.

Another soft sob came from beyond the portal. From inside.

Otogi?

The other guards were already busy removing her body. "What do we do with her, sir?" One of them asked, stirring Honda once again to reality. He glanced through the entrance, and met a pair of tortured green eyes, set deep in a face so deathly pale that the scar beneath his eye stood out like a seam of chalk. Honda's eyes turned back to the guardsman, who cradled the poor woman's wretched, stiffening form in his arms.

_Mai…_

"Give her a warrior's burial," He began, "she deserves…"

"No."

The soft denial seemed to echo from everywhere at once. All eyes moved to the doorway where Honda stood, and inside, the young man chained to the wall was on his feet. "No. She was no warrior of yours"

"What would you have, then?"

"Give her to the desert. Our people_…_" he swallowed noisily, the blazing emerald of his eyes suddenly finding a port in the deep, dark wells of his watcher's gaze, and spoke privately to him in their common tongue, "_what is _left_ of our people will find her."_

Those eyes…they held him captive…and they begged him to understand.

The guards turned with questioning murmurs to Honda, who suddenly found himself in the uncomfortable position of first-in-command, as his mentor had successfully rendered _himself_ incapacitated. He broke his trained gaze on Otogi at last, and gave the men a curt nod. "Do as he says. Take the warrior's body to the desert. And return her weapons before you do."

Otogi's gaze glowed with a strange light, before he managed an incredulous nod.

Reverently, the warriors set to their task. And ultimately, they would complete the path of freedom that Mai had laid for herself.

But in her wake, she left three men in chains of sorrow.

At last, Honda's feelings converged, no longer separated by the gap of years between the man of the past and the man of the far future. No longer were the memories unbidden. They flowed into him as Mai's death touched sorrow in every part of his being; became a whole part of him. It was a strange feeling, to be utterly conscious of both lives at once, but at least he was in control, and no longer fighting to glean pieces of his past from shadowed, unexpected corners of his mind.

Overcome by the power of it, Honda staggered through the doorway and fell to his knees beside Otogi.

Otogi. The friend he remembered…the one companion he'd been willing to utterly share _everything _with…since Jounouchi had fallen into mourning Yami's loss, far in the future.

It was damned confusing, all of these tangled ties, but at least feelings didn't lie. _Help me_, Honda's eyes beseeched, as he gazed up at Otogi, _I remember you…help me, and I'll help you…_

The dark-haired boy stood over him for a quiet second, before his brows drew down. "What have _you _to mourn? She was my _sister, _in soul if not in blood!"

"I remember her…" Honda answered, quietly, too emotionally overdrawn to make an issue of Otogi's sudden willingness to speak in the language of the King, "but when I tried to speak to her…she never knew me." Such was the way with _all _of his friends, here. The world was becoming a vastly lonely place…was he doomed to wander this ancient earth by himself as some kind of divine punishment?

Some of his despair communicated itself to Otogi, and the other boy lowered himself again to the stone, offering himself to fill Honda's empty arms. "I know you."

"You know me _now_…" Honda sighed, but certainly didn't resist the other's quiet lean toward him, and his hands slipped around Otogi's hunched shoulders.

The world froze beyond the prison's doors for them, as each found some small measure of comfort and understanding in the other's arms.

A half hour passed on that cool stone floor, until a messenger came fleeing from the King's chambers in search of Honda. The page found him curled around the lightly dozing form of the young nomadic warrior, and an eyebrow arched. But she said nothing. Her place was only to deliver the urgent message, and deliver Jounouchi's protégé to Yami's bedside.

"The pharaoh has awakened," The page said, without further pretense, "and he is asking for Honda. You are requested at the King's chambers immediately."

"Oh…" Honda blinked sleepily…a half hour in Otogi's embrace had reminded him of just how _tired _he was. Then the news cut across his senses, and he struggled to his feet, shoving Otogi rudely to one side in his haste. The other boy stared up at him in irritation and – was that hurt?

"_Go, prophet_," he sneered, the walls once again in place between the nomad and the bodyguard, "_go and speak wise words of comfort to your pharaoh._"

"Get me the keys to this one's chains." Honda demanded of the page. She blinked.

"S-sir?"

"You _heard _me."

She had.

She went.

Honda met the eyes of the yet-seated youth, whose gaze was upturned and wide with shock.

"What, you think I was going to leave you here?"

"What do you think you're _doing_, is what I wonder."

"You were right, in one thing at least. You shouldn't be tied up."

"You're just going to let me leave?"

The page returned with the keys, and without a moment to spare, Honda set to unlocking his fetters.

"Can you think of any reason why I shouldn't?" He asked, without looking up from his work. Honda possessed the only weapons in the room. He had the keys. He had also only recently comforted the nomadic warrior just as much as the other provided comfort for him.

"But I…but you…" Otogi sputtered, "…no…?"

Honda smiled thinly. "Right answer." The last manacle came free, and he tossed it aside. "There. You're free to go. The stables aren't far from here. If you're quick, you can make it out. Go tell your people…about…" He clapped a hand on Otogi's shoulder, "Go tell them."

Otogi caught his wrist, squeezed it, and backed away to flee.

Honda was already going the other direction as Otogi turned, dashing full-tilt after the page to Yami's room.


	14. Remember the Future

_Chapter Fourteen_

* * *

"You should not be sitting up!"

"Do not fight me."

"You don't have the strength!"

"I have something to do."

A sigh. "I love you well, Most High, but you are _exasperating_."

A weak chuckle. "You _know_ me. Far too well."

Honda had to smile at the softly bickering voices as he gestured to the guards to allow him entrance to the pharaoh's bedchambers. But at the sight of his King, the expression vanished from his features.

Yami was pale as milk – even with his golden-skinned complexion, he was nearly colorless. The soft strands of his hair were no longer upright, but rather tangled and loose around his head in a living…fading…halo of red and gold. And the body. The lithely muscled body that was the pharaoh's pride had wasted to a painfully thin skeleton practically overnight.

Despite it all, he seemed…more focused…and infinitely more powerful now, as though he had been distilled into his truest form by the ordeal.

But as Honda watched how tenderly his mentor propped the pillows behind Yami's back so that the boy could sit upright, he saw the flame of power as a rogue flare. A flare that once spent would claim him utterly. His every posture and restless shift spoke eloquently of exhaustion; his voice was a low, husky rasp, and his eyes…

…Yami's eyes were no longer the living, glowing violet that echoed from past to present and promised a hundred thousand lives in between of the same hue. They were red. The iris glittered with more electricity than a highly polished ruby.

That sight alone disturbed Honda more than any other he had seen in these frightening days.

Those hideously fascinating eyes scanned the entrance with a sense of urgent purpose that drew the younger, taller man into the room as though drawn by a cord to Yami's bedside. The pharaoh held out a thin palm to him with the phantom of a smile left to him, and Honda dropped to his knees deferently beside the well-cushioned divan, a kiss pressed to the whitened knuckles clenched in his hands.

"You summoned me, Your Highness?" Honda inquired, not looking up. Not _wanting _to look up.

"I did."

"What service can I offer?"

A long, long pause. Silence wrapped the room in stifling linen wraps…as though some unseen priest prepared this precious hour for the realm of the dead.

"You have been a loyal servant and a true friend, Honda."

"Thank you, Your…"

"But I can only stay with you for a short time longer."

"…_Yami_…"

It was the very first time that Honda had forgotten himself. The first time that he had referred to the pharaoh by _any _kind of first name, let alone the one that he knew the man by in the future. But the hellish mix of present…and past…did not allow him to think.

Yami only smiled. "Do not worry, Honda. You will call that name again one day in the future. I have seen it."

"Love…?" Jounouchi asked softly, incredulous. Yami waved the glowering room-guards out into the hall, leaving the three friends alone.

The days he had spent beyond their reach had taught him much. Catapulted into the future, and forced to bear witness the catastrophic effects of the games they played—and the inevitable time in which they would play the games again.

A cycle. An endless cycle. And a curse for their irreverent touch upon the sacred.

He had foreseen that _this_ was the last time they would share such an intimate moment for many, many years. The tortured red eyes gazed up to Jounouchi. _How much he will change…_ Yami marveled, overcome with awe – not for the first time – by the inner strength and courage of his mate. He foresaw much more pain than this. He foresaw an even greater pain…and one that would last longer and leave deeper scars. The pharaoh was forced to look down, then, lest tears trace his cheeks.

For Jounouchi would not always be alone. This, too, he had seen. One day, as a boy already robbed of his innocence, his lover would find the remarkable soul destined to _end _the arc of evil that already throbbed and thrummed beneath their feet. This soul…this _light_…it would help his jaded beloved to recover the innocence and joy of life he had lost.

He had a vague understanding that this soul would be responsible for his _own _saving as well. In more ways than one.

Yami had seen the return of the sorcerer…the one they mistakenly assumed was merely a priest. But he knew now that _both _of them were ruled by their addiction and their lust for victory. That the beasts they controlled would kill them eventually, no matter the time or place.

Mortals were not destined nor built to bend the will of the gods.

He should have known this.

He knew that what he was about to do was a futile attempt to seal the powers away…but that one day, the bright soul he saw beside his lover would help them to finish what he made a beginning to, now.

And behind them all…was Honda. A surprisingly unremarkable boy for all the many and varied heroes around him…and remarkable for that, all in itself. A voice of reason. A strong arm to support and defend. A soul so inextricably bound to this fate that he could _never _escape it.

And though he would not know it then…only Honda would _remember_. Honda alone would find the way to free him when the Great Ones were locked away, and the pharaoh with them.

Yami had the keys. He had the power…though oh-so-briefly. Yami would safeguard the monsters for _now_, knowing that in the future, his defenses would be useless and the battle must be fought all over again.

He would do this; complete this thing… _knowing _what obscure tortures lay ahead for himself and his friends. It was a world-weary sigh that escaped Yami's weakened lungs, now.

When it was over…Honda would _remember_. And Honda would bring him home. He could trust in this.

Honda, unaware of all of this…was watching him, face a study of concern.

"Majesty…?"

Yami realized, faintly, that he had yet to answer Jounouchi's original inquiry, and he looked up to the taller young man's face with a beatific smile. "I know what is to come. I will forget soon…but _you_…" Yami turned to Honda, and his palm twisted free from the other's clutching hands to press against Honda's cheek, "you will not. You can unmake the weaving, Honda. Where the rest of us fail, you will not."

"Why?" Honda asked, not understanding, but ingrained with the belief that such a thing was impossible.

"Because you are the only one who will know how."

And the future-Honda mumbled something sleepily in the back of his mind about that being "bullshit." In reality, he only nodded, confused.

Satisfied, Yami turned his slender resources fully to focus on the task at hand.

How to catch a god.

But first…he needed to call on his original enemy.

He needed Kaiba.

"This is what we must do…"

Nimble hands felt about in the darkness of the underground arena. Though anyone _this _deep in the catacombs was rare, a torch might attract the attention of anyone passing above. Attracting attention was quite the _last _thing they wanted. Rather, what they wanted was etched on the wall, carved into the stone in deep-set relief directly opposite the door. Lights from the torches at the top of the stairwell above cast a weak light to find the mark, and only until his companion was ready would he crack the talisman his master had given him for the purpose.

His sensitive fingers at last found the razor-tipped beak of the Sun God's Guardian, chipped into the thick stone above a series of hieroglyphics that the servant could only just fathom. He was not of the caste allowed to read the sacred words. His lot was only to kneel in stuffy, airless underground passageways and paint them into the walls when the carvings were finished.

Or paint them onto his master's skin. With a satisfied grunt, he dropped, cross-legged, to the floor and drew out a pot of ochre, a camelhair brush and the talisman from around his neck. "Whenever you are ready, Your Lordship," He simpered at the dark, voice only just retaining deference.

"I have been _ready _for the past candle mark," came another voice, low and impatient in the dusky shadows. "There are no guards. You are wasting time with all this caution."

"I do not want you to be captured, Your Lordship."

"_You_ don't want to lose the other half of the gold I promised for your services. Now _quickly_, idiot!"

He could have snapped any number of things. That his master was only going to _be _his master for as long as it took to gain control of the Gods' Guardians. As long as it took to get enough gold to take what remained of his village as far away from this place as he could.

But instead, he merely uttered the oath and snapped the talisman, and a brilliant beam of white light illuminated the cavernous room. The sigils of power stood out in stark relief beneath their corresponding creatures. His master knelt beside the painter, in one of the rare times that he would allow himself a remotely submissive gesture, and untied his robe, to let the fabric slip down the smooth plane of his naked back. He shook silver-bleached hair across his shoulders and leaned forward.

The painter _had _to admit that it was really a very _nice _back…

"Get on with it."

It wasn't a request.

"Yes, Your Lordship."

He dipped his brush in the pot of compounded ochre, oil, and beeswax, and proceeded to paint images of the three Gods' Guardians upon his master's back with the slurried mixture. Right now, they had no time to properly tattoo them…but once in the safety of His Lordship's quarters, they would do just that.

His Lordship already felt the stirrings of power within him…the discontented rumble of the Punisher…the sliding scales of the Saint-Dragon…the malevolent purr of the Guardian of Ra…once he was marked for all eternity with the signs of their power, he could command them _without _uttering the pathetic little weak-willed rhymes, the way that self-absorbed priest and his arrogant _King_ had done. When they were one with his flesh, and not merely paintings upon his skin, he could only imagine the pleasurable sensations…Ra's dangerous, husky rumblings were already having quite a positive effect on him.

He was confident that he had the power to control the monsters without the need of dirges. After all…hadn't he slaughtered almost an entire village to create the Rod of Power?

Yes, he had. And His Lordship knew very well that his little servant, the painter, would like just as much to ram the butt-end of his paintbrush through his master's throat as tattoo the power-giving symbols on his back.

It gave the entire situation a very distinct thrill. His Lordship shuddered with anticipation at the thought of giving his _obedient_ little servant a needle.

His eyes lidded, lulled by the warm paint brushing across his shoulder blades in slow, painstaking strokes. "Aren't you finished _yet_?" He growled for good measure.

The artist didn't answer. Stroke, stroke, stroke, said the paintbrush. His muscles provided the memory of technique, a fine patina of sweat sheening his skin in the airless cavern as he worked at smoothing the fine brown slurry in detailed, careful lines across his master's back. And His Lordship's shoulders _did _slide so beneath the skin…the play of light over rolling, dimly glistening skin was more than a bit distracting.

In another hour, the whole of the artwork was finished. Trapped in bounding boxes were the basic, stylized designs of three monsters – a vague man-shape, a rampant dragon, and a seated gryphon. The long lines of code that formed their chants of invocation were listed beneath each powerful design. All in all, it filled all of his master's right side…from the nape of his neck, across his shoulder blade, and down his ribcage to just where the curve of his buttock began. All in drying brown ochre.

The talisman dimmed and died, taking its bright light with it. The painter lifted away his brush and stowed it with the pot of ochre. "Let it dry some, or it will smear. And do not do anything…that will cause you to sweat…"

Gingerly, the master shrugged on his robes again, tying them loosely. "What _exactly _are you suggesting that I refrain from, my dear?"

The servant swallowed noisily, all of the hatred that had boiled up over the past two hours dissolving at the sight of his master's chest, a hot slice of which was exposed to the suddenly too-warm air. "I…"

"I suppose we had better finish the tattoo quickly, then, hadn't we?"

Servant glared at his master's navel, but he could _feel _the other man's amused smile. "Yes, Your Lordship."

They went.


	15. Because It Has To Be This Way

_Chapter Fifteen_

* * *

Needless to say, neither Jounouchi nor Honda was particularly enthused about the idea. Jounouchi argued against it quite passionately—yes, yes, perhaps his Lordship had need of a powerful spirit, and perhaps his Lordship had summoned such powerful spirits in the past, but by Ra…it sounded like a mistake from the start.

It didn't turn out to be as much a mistake as they thought.

"We need to construct gates…gates to lock the power of the beasts within…to limit their powers to the same rules as the other spirits we call."

"Gates?" That sounded like something that could be _opened_ again. Kaiba leveled a challenging gaze on Yami. His essence was still very much a part of the palace, as his death had occurred only hours before within the most energy-laden part of the underground temples. Calling him had been child's play. But convincing the semi-transparent sorcerer to cooperate was another matter entirely. His aura blazed in a towering, blinding inferno around his misty body. "The Divine Punisher is _mine_! No hand touches him but _mine_!"

"I see that you cannot touch much of anything…at the moment."

From his position against the cushions, Yami could _almost_, but _not quite_ see through the blaze-white of Kaiba's robes to the doorway. He was limited to this room only, contained by the circle of jagged crystals lining the floor in a bounding fence.

Kaiba winced under Yami's calmly delivered jab. "This is _your _fault."

"We sealed our own fates, Kaiba." The awesome ruby eyes fixed on his intangible former opponent's gaze. "If it will help you…mine will soon be the same as yours."

Jounouchi's grip tightened reflexively on Yami's wrist, as he knelt in wary vigil over the wasted pharaoh. The look he shot Honda was agonized. By the eye of Horus…he _knew _he was going to say good-bye to his beloved King…but _did _Yami have to shove the inevitable end down his throat at every turn?

Honda understood. He cleared his throat to gather the attention of the ghost and the pharaoh. "But…don't we want to destroy them?"

"We can't," the pharaoh explained, patiently, "they're manifestations of gods, my friend. We can't lock them away forever, and we can't destroy them. We can only close the door for now, and hope that someday, someone has the power to finish what we begin."

Over Yami's head, bent weakly as it was to his cushions, now Jounouchi and Honda exchanged confused glances.

"Perhaps you should rest a while longer, Majesty…" Honda began.

The gaze Yami turned on him could have charred stone to cinders. "I am _not _insane. I know what has to be done, and I assure you, I am _quite _capable of handling this." He strained to sit up on his own, and a weak cough shook his frail body.

Another look of raised eyebrows passed between the two guards hanging over their king. He'd said he could handle the Guardian of Ra, as well.

Yami continued, unphased. "There is an ancient script—said to be written by the father-god Himself—that details the only way to bind them. It requires a sacrifice…three actually…one for each creature."

Jounouchi and Honda opened their mouths at once to volunteer—but their voices never reached the air.

"Their souls must be touched by the monsters. By the Gods. That excludes the pair of you." Yami continued, without looking up. "Besides. You are not to blame." His gaze was still fixed on the sorcerer's eyes. "_You_, however, are as much to blame as I. Will you…?"

The vague avatar of a dragon flared up out of Kaiba's aura, as lances of brilliant blue overwhelmed the angry red. "You have my cooperation, if it means that you will suffer as I have."

"There is no doubt of that." Yami's eyes flared. "And the third sacrifice is even now approaching this room."

The three men surrounding the fallen King's divan blinked as one. What was this folly? There was no other…

Kaiba sensed the tendrils of power first. "The Guardian of Ra…"

Yami nodded. "I fell to the Dragon. You...to the Punisher. The Guardian has driven his possessor mad."

His words echoed to the tune of the great, fret worked double doors of the master bedroom flying open as though slammed apart by an unseen force. And standing directly between them, shoulders hunched and arms splayed to either side with the exertion of the shove…was…

Honda felt the feral growl rising in his throat. At last, his memories of the future would do him some _good_! "Malik!" He spat the word as if it were a filthy curse. He and Jounouchi were on their feet in a span of breaths.

His eyes were wild, mouth twisted into an animal snarl as his thin chest heaved with each breath. A chain of gold clung to his neck, as a heavy cloak of some darkly blue fabric hung heavily across his shoulders and down his back. His body seemed bathed in some eerie golden light…as though something beneath his cape glowed with a ferocity only obscured by the heavy thickness of the fabric. Shards of pain-bright light escaped whenever he moved.

The blond hair…bleached silver by immeasurable energies coursing his body stood out from his head in sharp angles as a living, deadly glory. If he'd been in his right mind…whichever one that _was_…Honda would have snickered at his appearance. Malik had always looked to him for all the world as though he'd just stuck a wet finger in a light socket.

This was no laughing matter. The rolling, staring silver of Malik's eyes boded corruption and madness, and he brandished a shining gold staff in his right hand, topped by an orb inscribed with the Eye of Horus. The lethal needle tip of a dagger's point gleamed at the tip of the rod. Both it _and _the madman practically glowed with malevolent desire.

Honda knew him. He knew that Malik didn't function well when things didn't go according to plan. He knew that the man…spirit…past life…_whatever_…could adapt as quickly as a chameleon, and that if he wanted to bring the man down before anything else happened, he'd only have one shot. But _nobody _was going to attack his friends! Not on _his _watch!

"**_YOU!_**"

Logic and intelligence dissolved in the burning heat of rage at this specter from his future, and Honda lunged, sword drawn and raised overhead before he could stop himself. He didn't heed the cries of denial from his comrades behind. He didn't see the patient smirk twisting Malik's lips – the smile that had _always _preceded a catastrophic event.

The shockwave grew in the glowing tip of Malik's rod, and burst outward with a thunderous roar and the crackling buzz of spent energy. It raced toward Honda, who stupidly raced— in turn–right into its path…

…Or rather, into the soft, giving body of a man flung across his path. He yelped, and the butt of his sword slammed hard into the stranger's shoulder as Honda's full weight and the weight of his blade was driven into the other's back.

The shockwave of golden light drove through both of them, and with doubled screams of pain they were flung backwards to skid into a tangled heap. Their momentum carried them right _through _Kaiba's transparent legs, to rest against the raised lip of the dais that formed the platform for Yami's bed.

Honda choked and spat blood, his tender insides protesting to the abuse of a two-ton gut-punch, blocked somewhat as it had been by the…stranger…_what the hell_…?

He clawed weakly at dark strands of hair flung across his eyes. Dark hair that _wasn't _his. "Ungh…'Yu…?"

"Mruh…" The croaked reply was equally weak, but the timbre of the voice remarkably clear. He turned the other boy over.

It _was_. It was Otogi. Why had he come back? Hadn't he left to find what was left of the nomads? Gone back to find Mai's body?

Moreover, why was he _here_? How had he known to come here and block the bolt of energy?

There was no way he could have known…until a few scant seconds ago, the warrior hadn't known himself.

"Why?" Honda choked, wiping the back of one hand against the corner of his mouth.

Otogi's eyes were fogged with pain, but still managed to latch onto Honda's gaze.

"…couldn't leave, after all."

The eyes closed with a hard swallow.

Sitting up was out of the question. The most he could do was coil closer to Otogi's mostly unresponsive body and crawl across him to lie between the nomadic warrior and the evil they faced.

Fat lot of good that would do. Honda peered back to catch a glimpse of Otogi's face. The other boy's features were a still mask of pain, and blood dribbled from his mouth in a steady line of dark red. His eyes were standing open now again, revealing their glazed emerald depths.

"I'm sorry," Honda sobbed hoarsely.

"Ass." Otogi mumbled, and passed out.

Above them, the battle raged. Jounouchi, screaming in denial of what he took to be his friend's demise, threw himself off of the platform at the yet-smirking youth.

"**_HALT!_**"

Jounouchi froze, and turned to see Kaiba's ephemeral hand clenching his wrist, arresting his forward motion. But…but…Kaiba wasn't supposed to be able to do _that_! He gasped, as the touch sent shocks of electricity sparking outwards, throwing his heartbeat out of rhythm and leaving his skin buzzing and ice-cold from head to foot.

Anger. All of Kaiba's emotions were translating themselves through that touch – and Jounouchi was quite sure that he _never _wanted to touch another ghost. The incredible anger and sense of purpose pinned Jounouchi to the spot.

"You _idiot_! _One_ couldn't stop him, why would _two_?"

"Besides," hissed a sibilant voice at Jounouchi's shoulder, "you have other worries than my _dear_ master."

Kaiba's emotions drained abruptly from him as his wrist phased through the other's hand, and Jounouchi felt the shredding agony of sharp fingernails carving bleeding lines down his spine. He wrested free of Kaiba's grip with a shriek, spinning to ram a fist through the skull of whoever had just left the icy, stinging trails of pain on his back.

A pale youth stood before him, having jumped neatly back out of the way of the clenched knuckles. He chuckled in gentle amusement. "Oh…don't like it when someone _else _plays rough?" A flash, a click, and a dagger stood out in the white-haired teenager's fist. "Maybe I'll just have to _teach _you to like it! Rrrah!" He swiped at Jounouchi like a cat, driving the taller swordsman off of the dais and pursuing him viciously further and further from the pharaoh's bedside.

Yami turned his eyes up to Kaiba's, aflame with urgency. His friends' fates were of little importance now…if he took the time to mourn his inability to help _them_, all would be lost. "He's already created a key. He has a seventh key, Kaiba! We have to work quickly!"

Kaiba was at his side as though he were no more than a whispered gasp, and Yami called the carved scripture up from the annals of memory.

"I _feel _your intentions, pharaoh!" The silver-maned specter from the doorway crowed. "Do not deign to think that _you _can take the powers from me _now_! I alone control the Guardians! I can call upon their powers at will!" Thin fingers tore at the chain clasp of his cloak, and as it fell away, it released the pent-up fiery light concealed beneath. Beams shot away from his skin in a glory that could almost be mistaken for divinity, had it not been for the all-pervasive smoking stench of _wrong_ that wove among the incandescent brilliance. An avian form billowed behind him, arching its seraphic, half-formed wings to heaven as the madman raised his arms.

The painted lines had been made permanent, etched into his skin with dyes, and still bled with the freshness of the wounds – but the gilded light rose up from them instead of lifeblood, bathing his spine and shoulder in brilliance.

And to look at Malik's face, one would believe that it hurt like _hell_.

Neither Yami nor Kaiba answered him. Instead, Yami imparted the first lines of the age-old spell to his ghostly counterpart, and Kaiba throated the archaic rhythms with a stress that matched Yami's own.

"_Let one soul be the Keeper_

_Let one soul be the Lost…"_

Malik shrieked.

Jounouchi ducked a flying blade and was clawed across the eye by a set of sharpened fingernails. He cried out in agony and spun away, only to be scythed across the ribs by his opponent's dagger.

Honda struggled to rise, desperate to join his comrade in battle, and yet fearing to leave Otogi behind. The other youth lay motionless. Honda focused bleary eyes on Jounouchi's writhing form, and at last, abandoned Otogi's side and crouched beside the dais, waiting for his chance to bring down his best friend's opponent. His stomach was still a churning pit of fire, and every move was dizzying…but if they came close enough, he _might _be able to strike.

"The dagger," Yami hissed under his breath to the warrior kneeling at the base of his bed, "get the dagger…"

And then he launched into the second couplet of the simple verses. Already around them, the air was crackling with power. It swirled in copper strands, eddying when Malik directed another shockwave to strike them. The avian form took on leonine hindquarters, and sprang for them, beak open and eyes glowing a hot red. Honda saw it coming, realized that even if he leapt for it…the thing would probably pass right through him without stopping. He gazed up frantically at Yami and Kaiba's spirit. Things were unraveling far too quickly for him to follow.

Another hoarse, agonized cry from Jounouchi's lips tore his eyes away. The white-haired stranger struck again. Jounouchi dodged sluggishly, slow, as though dragging his body through deep water. Water which soon turned to mud…and mud to cement. Every step took more out of him, until at last, he could only just stagger away from the other's blade and claws in desperation. And then…not even that.

Honda dragged a bloodied hand over his own mouth to stifle a cry of denial.

The blade was poisoned. Or magicked. It _had _to be. If only…_oh shit_…

At last, Honda's fuzzing vision rewarded him with a true glimpse of his mentor's assailant. The angelic face and grace of movement brought tears of disbelief to his eyes.

White hair flung wildly about the other's face, and beautiful blue eyes were calculating and predatory.

_Bakura? Please, no!_

The gentle boy's image had been twisted. Perverted. The mix and mesh of memories began to take their toll on Honda's sanity at last, as the continual bloom of pain became more fierce.

Jounouchi spun, and with a last spurt of anger, he aimed a slash at Bakura's chest, slitting him from chin to navel. Filmy, pristine hair exploded over Honda's stomach as Bakura fell back against him, dagger clattering to the floor.

Bakura's slender arms wrapped around his midsection, and he crumpled, eyes glazed with pain and disbelief.

_Defeated_…? No…please…

He would never be able to save his village…never…

…_never…_

Malik's shrieking avatar darted inexorably toward its targets.

"_Charge one to bind the magic, and,_

_Make three to pay the cost…"_

Yami intoned the words, as Honda caught up the loathsome dagger and tossed it onto the bed.

A ball of hot white light enclosed them, and the bird-cat bounced off with a scream of thwarted rage.

They were safe. For now.

Honda wrapped his arms around Bakura's trembling, jerking form as Jounouchi stumbled down against his other shoulder.

"What are you…?" Jounouchi tried to gasp, eyeing the pale, dying teenager in his protégé's arms with cold hatred. "Kill…"

"_No_." Honda caught his best friend's arm and drew him in tightly. "It's _not_ him."

"But…" Jounouchi's eyes were glazing as the poison of the blades reached his head. Honda's body was screaming a protest at even the slight weight of Bakura's shoulders in his lap. He couldn't bear to touch it. And he felt as though he were going slowly, slowly numb.

"He's a pawn." He choked.

Bakura was _always _a pawn. Nothing had changed in any of his other comrades…why should this integral part of the abused, fading spirit cradled in his lap be any different?

In answer, Jounouchi only groaned and collapsed utterly against his friend's shoulder.

"Honda."

"Nn…"

"You served His Majesty well."

"…"

What could he say? Thank-you? His silence filled the scant breaths of pause, before Jounouchi spoke again.

"I…am _glad_…that…it was you…"

"Jou…"

Jounouchi's eyes squinted in confusion…warmed with recognition, and he nodded.

For a moment only, their bond spanned the ages. Jounouchi knew _him _for what he was, _who _he was, and the memory of what had been and what would be melted together. This familiarity of kin could not be thrown aside – it went far, far deeper than any blood ties.

Jounouchi sighed, this time with finality. The dark depths of his eyes slid shut, leaving Honda alone.

The brief flash of recognition was over.

First Jounouchi's, and then Bakura's chest slowly settled, their heated breath no longer spilling against his skin.

Heart-wrenching sorrow built up in the pit of his burning gut, and he let out a raw howl of grief. Too late. He'd never had the _chance_…to say…

A soft body stumbled against his opposite shoulder, nearest the foot of the bed.

He looked up.

Green eyes looked down.

Tears pricked both.

A brilliant glow of light was growing between the fleshless form of Kaiba and the hopelessly frail Yami.

"_Make one to see the future; charge one to know the past,_

_And one to sit in judgment is the one awakened last."_

The burning ball of brilliance surrounding and consuming Kaiba and Yami burst outwards, flooding the room and bathing its occupants in the glow.

Everything…everywhere…stopped.

Honda looked up, weak and sliding into shock. Preternaturally clear green eyes burned into his own. They were the only drop of color in an otherwise colorless white world.

Time was slipping away from them. He knew it, and Otogi knew it.

Time to say what they needed to say.

Honda knew he should thank Otogi for his sacrifice. But with his best friend slumped in the heaviness of death at one shoulder, and a close companion lying flayed on his lap, and the burning purpose of Honda's existence chanting a dirge to sacrifice his own life for all of them…who were already lost…

Well, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot to be thankful for.

But there was _one _thing he wanted to say. Whether this Otogi would carry it to the next life, he didn't know. But even if he never said it again, or if Otogi never really knew what he meant – there was _one _thing that he wanted to say. _Needed _to say.

Above them, Yami reached for the poisoned dagger, and in a single smooth stroke, he drew its sharp tip across his wrist. "We bid you, oh Great Ones…lock your beasts away." The other hand clenched around the blade, and slashed it over his yet unmarked wrist.

"We give you…our souls…in…exchange..."

The wounds flashed with impossible brilliance, rather than spurted blood.

Malik crumpled with a scream of such force that the very foundations shook. He fell to hands and knees, as the tattoos upon his back – unseen until now – flared angrily, and he felt himself being consumed by the flash.

He knew he was lost.

But he would not be taken!

In a burst of greedy self-preservation. Malik forced Bakura's spirit out of the tattered remnants of the pale youth's body, and thrust it into his own dying form, while _he _stepped neatly aside to watch.

But he had no idea just what the Rod had planned for him. When Bakura's spirit was sacrificed to save his own, the Rod would catch _Malik _when it reached for Kaiba. Catch _Malik_…lock _him_ away…while the priest continued on to the next life alone…free…

A pentagram etched itself into the floor in glowing gilded lines. Where triangles formed, a simplified shape was born. The horns of Hathor. A six-pointed ring. The Eye of Horus. The sacred ankh. And the scales of Osiris.

Three lines stretched inward and formed a sacred pyramid in the empty center of the pentagram. Honda's skin was crawling. He looked down to see a soft glow forming over his hands and traveling up his arms.

Oddly enough, he wasn't surprised. Just…warm.

The floor shifted. Began to crawl as well. Liquefied. From the tawny waves of limestone, the glowing symbols rose and took shape. The Tauk. The Ring. The Eye. The Ankh. The Scales. And in the center, a familiar pyramid took shape, pushed up out of the floor into a gleaming gilded radiance that took the breath away.

_The Puzzle_.

Yami rose from his bed with the last of his strength. Walked past Jounouchi's fallen form, unseeing, as he stepped unsteadily into the center of the pentagram. It bore his weight without complaint, though the stones still shifted ceaselessly under his feet.

Kaiba watched, expression unreadable on his translucent face.

Honda turned back to Otogi. Time was gone.

"Otogi…"

The dark-haired nomad gave him an odd look.

"Otogi, I…"

Kaiba joined Yami in the pentagram, and drawn by the will of the Gods, Malik's body – and the spirit of Bakura trapped therein – staggered up to his feet and took up his empty place.

Palms rose. The Puzzle shattered.

Wispy, ethereal tendrils of some misty aura drifted almost lazily from Yami's thin form, drawn into the broken pieces of the golden pyramid. It drew together piece by piece, the place where each fragment interlocked outlined by sheer white light.

_The Puzzle _shattered_…_

_He understood._

_He would remember._

"…love you…"

The other's eyes were burning…burning with a green brilliance that almost drowned out the supernatural light already bathing the room. Otogi's ruby-stained lips twitched…began to curve as though to smile…

There was a terrible flash that blinded every eye left to see, and a scream of denial from Malik's disembodied throat cut short…and then darkness.

Just…darkness. Empty. Warm and empty and dark.

He groped in the shadows and touched nothing. And nothing touched him but the warmth.

_Is this what it's like to die?_

There was no tunnel…no glowing beacon of light drawing him onward.

His uncle was a big, fat liar.

_Otogi…_

_Otogi don't leave me. Otogi…_

_Don't leave me alone…_


	16. Morning Sunshine

_Chapter Sixteen_

* * *

Darkness, like life, doesn't last forever. The insanity of black faded…warmed to dark red, and then pink.

Blood?

No…the inside of his eyelids.

"Unnh…"

"Honda? _Honda_, are you awake, man?"

Gentle hands were squeezing his left, and as he stirred, Honda felt the tug of ropes attached to his forearms.

Gods, no. Not _ropes_. Not _again_. He wrenched at them, testing their strength. Something ripped out of his skin, and he yelped.

"_Honda!_ God, man, wake _up!_ Nurse! _Nurse!_ Get in here, he's having some kind of fit!"

That _voice_. His eyes flew open, searching for the owner of the disembodied, achingly familiar tones. He couldn't still be _alive_, could he?

Something warm dripped down the inside of his elbow. Now that…_that_ was blood. But where the hell _was _he? There was a clamor of voices, and someone snatched up his bleeding forearm, pressing down on the wound there.

He shifted. And he hurt…hurt in places that he shouldn't. There were heavy stone blocks weighing his wrists down. They were almost too heavy to move. His hip twinged. And he was having a hard time moving _that_, too.

And _oh_, his head _hurt._ When he grimaced, his cheek pulled with the tightness of unfamiliar scars. "Anhh…what…?"

"Honda…" The name drawled out into a moan, "Oh, _God_…you're alive! I thought…we thought…after the accident…"

"…'Yu…ji…?"

He searched for the green eyes that the voice _had _to belong to, and he found them. Latched onto them. Held tight with every ounce of strength he had. Otogi's smile was dazzling. Funny. He hadn't seen it all the time he'd known…

The present came back to him in a headlong rush. Yes, he _had _seen Otogi smile before. But it never had _quite _this effect on him.

He found himself smiling back.

The cacophony of voices was dying down, now. Someone had bandaged his forearm while he'd been drowning in Otogi's smile. Oh. He must have…ripped an I.V. out?

The Honda of the past balked at the foreign words. What in the name of Ra was an I.V.? And _why _had someone attached that thing to his arm? What was this, some kind of torture?

He shook his head, still discarding shreds of ancient thoughts.

"Yeah, it's me, man. It's Otogi. You remember me, huh?"

"Yeah…I…"

"Just wait until the other guys find out! They'll drop everything! I should go call them…"

The other guys? His friends? Shizuka, Anzu, Yuugi…_Mai_…_Jounouchi_…_Bakura_…

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes at the thought. Jou and Mai and Bakura…_alive_. It was too much to deal with.

The green eyes floating over Honda's bedside tightened in concern. "Are you all right? Are you in pain? I could get one of the doctors in here, if that's what you need…"

If _only _he would stop babbling. It was hard to follow, readjusting to the words that no longer made sense to his ears. "'Yuuji?"

"…yeah?"

"Just…shut up a minute?"

"…Oh…okay…"

He still hadn't released the other's hand, and tightening his grip—_owww_—Honda pulled him closer.

"Tell me what happened…?"

Otogi sat down beside him again, scrubbing his thumb over what little of the back of Honda's hand he could reach for the cast. Let Honda decide what he was comfortable with. Otogi hadn't seen his expression change for almost five goddamn months. Until the other boy forcibly pulled his hand away, he wasn't going to move it. His eyes closed in thought. "It's been…almost five months,"

_Five months?_

"…We had a sleepover at Yuugi's, and you left the house on your bike."

_Bike? _He stumbled momentarily over the word, before a white Yamaha with blaze-red stripes flowed into his memory. _Ohhh…bike…_

Damn, he had a pretty bike, didn't he?

Otogi went on.

"You trashed it."

Trashed his bike? _Trashed_ his _bike_?

"That was a dumbass thing to do," Honda sighed. Otogi chuckled softly, and nodded.

"Yeah, it was. Geez, you just _had _to spin out right in front of me, didn't you?"

"_You _were the one yelling behind me."

"Uh…" The tone of Otogi's voice was slightly sheepish. "Yeah, well…I was pretty sure you were dead, after all. Some little kid ran out in front of you…no, take it easy, Honda. He wasn't hurt."

Honda settled back with a grimace at the pain moving had caused. The doctors hadn't been able to do much physical therapy until recently, considering his injuries. He was _sore_. "That's good, at least."

"Yeah," Otogi nodded again. "Hey, do you need anything? I can get the—"

"'Yuuji?"

"…yeah?" Otogi paused again midsentence at the interruption, and looked down.

He shook his hand free of Otogi's. He knew what he _wanted _to do…despite the fact that the—dream? Hallucination? Memory?—was long over, he was still grateful for the selfless way Otogi had taken his hit.

But it hadn't been real, had it?

He'd just have to pop Yuugi's puzzle apart and see if a pharaoh came out.

And until then…

His fingertips – made heavy by the cast – rose to brush against Otogi's jaw. The darker-haired teenager didn't pull away. Instead, he sat frozen, staring down at Honda with wide, frightened eyes.

This was wrong. Wrong on several levels, no matter how _good_ it felt. And what if his friends saw…?

Honda's muscles quaked, having lain unused for so long, and his hand began to drop. "Help me out here, would you?" He asked, with half a smile. A hopeful smile.

But…this was wrong…

Otogi decided he didn't care. With a soft grunt of agreement, his hands caught up Honda's palm in a gentle grip and guided it back to his cheek, nuzzling into the fingertips as though they were his own soul given back to him.

They brushed the downward-pointing streak on Otogi's cheek, just under his eye. It was not mascara, after all, but a tattoo. And underneath the tattoo, Honda could feel the slick, uneven raised edge of a scar. He didn't want to ask how it came to be. It was far too appropriate, just as it was.

"I missed you."

"I missed you, too." Came the tentative reply.

Honda sighed. The last things he'd remembered was the being alone. Was being too preoccupied and worried to say what he _needed_ to say, _when _he needed to say it. Jounouchi had never known just how much his best friend cared about him. Otogi had probably died, and never known how much Honda…

"No, I mean…I _really_ missed you. I was lost for so long…I didn't have the chance…no…I didn't _take _the chance to—"

"Whoa, _whoa_, man, cool your jets!" Otogi grinned, drawing back to pat Honda's hand as he returned it to the bedclothes. "This doesn't sound like you at all. What'd they put in your meds, buddy?"

He knew it wasn't going to work, then. Otogi wasn't the same person now that he had been then. Honda had been an idiot to think it would be any differently. But it was too late. He _had _to finish what he'd started.

"—tell you I loved you…"

Silence. A moment of dead, ringing, stifling silence.

"…What'd you say?"

"I…love you."

Otogi gave him a long look. "That's what I thought you said." He leaned close to Honda's face, cupping his cheek as he searched the other's eyes. Honda gazed back at him, trying to say with his expression what it was that his words apparently couldn't.

If he'd had any strength left, he would have been up on his elbows by now, filling the little distance left between his lips and Otogi's.

But Otogi took care of it for him.

He'd never…kissed a _guy _before…was it going to be the same thing as kissing a girl?

Well…not quite. But his friend had surprisingly soft lips, as it turned out.

The puzzle-popping could wait until tomorrow.

* * *

_The End. _


End file.
